


Entropy

by HieronymusBox



Category: BNA: Brand New Animal (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, F/M, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Post-Canon, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25294153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HieronymusBox/pseuds/HieronymusBox
Summary: Shirou’s not healing as fast as normal. His sense of smell is weaker than it used to be. And no matter how Michiru offers to help, he keeps pushing her away.In other news, Michiru gets her GED.
Relationships: Hiwatashi Nazuna/Kagemori Michiru, Kagemori Michiru/Ogami Shirou
Comments: 97
Kudos: 338





	1. Too Stupid for School

_Last night I had a dream._

Michiru was back on top of that bus on the road to Anima City, the sea sparkling in her peripheral vision and the wind making a mess of her fur. Her phone was back in her pocket; no beastman-hunters were there to shoot it from her hands. Yet in that way that dreams do double, she knew she was also looking for the very phone she had with her, a phone unfolding through space and time. As Michiru lounged on that bus, phone in her pocket, she also received her phone from the mayor, inserted Marie’s contraband SIM card into it, plugged it in to charge before sitting down to dinner with Gem and Melissa, fifty mirror images through dream reflections. 

_You were with me._

The bus rounded a corner and cold wind blasted Michiru, chilling her straight through her fur. Shirou was suddenly there—or had he been there the whole time?—and he wrapped his arm around her. She sunk into his thick coat. He radiated warmth. _Let’s take a selfie,_ she said, silence ringing through the dream-ether, and smiled as she snapped the shot. Shirou was impassive, but at least he wasn’t actively frowning. 

_Isn’t this our stop?_ he asked.

They jumped down from the top of the bus by a stretch of woods that sat between the road and the bay that led to Anima City. 

_This is where I lost my phone when the beastman-hunters shot it,_ Michiru said. _I recognize that tree._

In her dream there was no contradiction between holding her phone in her hand and looking for it on the ground. 

_Let me smell it._ Shirou took a long whiff of the phone, then smelled the air, and wrapped her small paw in his bigger one and led her into the woods. Trees fluttered by, bending and warping out of their way, and Shirou spotted glass glinting among the leaves. He picked it up and handed it to her. _Is this your phone?_

Michiru stared hard at the dream object, examining it from all sides, trying to decide what it was. It morphed nebulously, bringing to mind material properties like _shiny, hard, smooth,_ but she couldn’t put a name to its shape. 

Then, for a split second, she had a flash of miraculous understanding. It was a-

* * *

Michiru rolled over in bed, a single thought pounding in her head: _What was it? What was it?_ But the dream was already fading, and she needed to pee quite badly. She squinted at the digital alarm clock by her bed. 5:37 AM. Past experience had taught her that it was more sensible to get up and use the bathroom than to lie in bed, uncomfortable and distracted, hoping that sleepiness would win out over her full bladder. Sleepiness never won.

She stumbled down the dark hall of the co-op, still trying to remember the dream. The harder she worked at it, the more determined it was to slip away, like she was frantically fishing for a shard of eggshell in gooey eggwhite that kept dashing out from between her fingers just as she was about to snatch it up.

Eye half-closed, bathroom lights still off, Michiru sat down on the toilet to pee, and then noticed something off about the dim communal bathroom. She was the only person besides Jem and Melissa living in the co-op right now, so normally the bathroom remained as she left it. Shirou had taken to staying elsewhere at night in the recent weeks, using some mysterious apartment he wouldn’t tell Michiru about no matter how much she teased him. When she cajoled him about getting his own place so he could bring partners home, he had scoffed and turned away. 

There was something on the floor. Quickly, Michiru finished using the toilet and turned the lights on, rubbing the dryness from her eyes.

The floor was covered in bloody paw prints. 

All sleepiness evaporated from Michiru’s mind. She followed the paw prints backwards. Someone had climbed in through the bathroom window, stopped at the sink, and washed themselves off, which blurred the shape of the prints. There was a single human-shaped footprint where the person had stepped back in the mess they had already made, and then…

Michiru followed the footprints into the hall, and down the hall to the room where Shirou used to sleep. She rarely went in his room. She already knew his room wasn’t much to look at; he claimed that in a thousand years of life he had mostly outgrown an interest in personal belongings. Plus he liked his privacy. 

His door was ajar. Heart pounding, Michiru poked her head through the door and all the fur on her body raised in alarm. 

Shirou lay face down on the bed, in human morph, bleeding. 

Bleeding?

He usually healed too fast to bleed for more than a few minutes. 

“Shirou?” Michiru’s voice shook. She touched his shoulder, wanting to shout and shake him, but she was afraid to exacerbate whatever injury he already had. “Shirou, can you hear me?” Shirou gasped like he had been holding his breath, and Michiru jumped back. “What happened? Why aren’t you healing?”

“Get out,” he rasped, struggling to sit up. Michiru tried to help him and he half-morphed into wolf form, batting her away with an enormous paw. 

“You’re hurt, you’re not healing,” Michiru whispered hysterically, trying to keep her voice down to not wake Melissa or Gem. “You have to tell me what happened—you have to tell me how I can help!”

He was in full wolf morph now, although it had taken him several long seconds to get there. “You can help by getting out of here.”

“No!” Michiru’s voice was louder, more insistent now. “I’m going to help you.”

“No you’re not,” Shirou growled, although there was an undercurrent of something strange in his tone, something almost like fear. Even in his weakened state he could still catch her by surprise and shove her out of his room, and he slammed the door and locked it before Michiru could register her rejection. 

* * *

Shirou wasn’t there at breakfast.

“I think Shirou stopped in early this morning,” Michiru said conversationally. “Do you think he wants breakfast?”

Melissa shrugged from behind her newspaper; it wasn’t her or Gem’s usual habit to keep track of Shirou. “Go see if he’s up.” She lowered her newspaper to show Gem an article. “It says here Rabbit Town’s been sold to a private buyer...”

Michiru tiptoed down the hall to Shirou’s room. She raised her hand to knock on the door and hesitated. Without meaning to, her ears became tall rabbit ears, scouring the sound waves for signs of life. Nothing. She knocked, and received no answer. She tried rattling his doorknob, and to her surprise, the door swung open to an empty room with the bed made. The air smelled like no one had been in there for days. 

“Am I going crazy?” Michiru asked the empty room. Had she lost her ability to recognize the boundary between dream and reality? She had reluctantly gone back to her room after Shirou kicked her out, unable to sleep, practically vibrating with tension, until her alarm went off. The bloody paw prints in the bathroom had disappeared while she was in bed. 

Maybe none of it had happened at all. 

“Is he not hungry?” Melissa asked, still not looking up from the newspaper, when Michiru returned to breakfast. 

“He already left,” Michiru said quietly, a sick emptiness gnawing at her insides. She put her fork down. “I think I’m going to go.”

“Oh alright.” Melissa turned a page of the paper, and then looked up as if their conversation had only just penetrated her sleepy brain. “Wait, you haven’t eaten.”

“I’m not hungry. I’ll save it for later.”

Michiru headed out in the brisk morning air towards the slums, her mind still on that strange episode with Shirou that was feeling more and more like a dream. Why had he pushed her away? They had a blunt, bantering relationship, and their banter sometimes veered into outright rudeness, but Shirou had never been unkind without reason. She had long since learned to ignore Shirou’s words and pay attention to his actions. He often told her to leave him alone but then smiled when she came anyway. This time he had physically pushed her away. Why had he refused her help? How had he gotten hurt?

Michiru passed by the restaurant where the mayor often ate breakfast and saw Mayor Rose in the window. They made eye contact and the mayor’s eyes widened; Michiru doubled back and met Mayor Rose at the door.

“Oh, Michiru,” the mayor said breathlessly, not meeting Michiru’s gaze. “Coincidence running into you here, I was just leaving.”

“You’re headed to city hall?”

“Why yes, I am.”

“Me too!” City hall was in the opposite direction of the slums, but Michiru didn’t feel bad walking with Mayor Rose because the Bears never started practice on time. “Hey Mayor Rose, I was wondering, do you _like_ eating breakfast and doing work at the same time?”

“Um.” Mayor Rose checked something on her phone and adjusted the strap of her neat messenger bag. “Well I try to make myself available to the citizens of Anima City if they want to bring issues to my attention. And I’m generally quite busy, so I try to optimize my time. I could do my morning work at home, but it’s more productive when I work in public.”

“But… do you like it?”

“It’s routine, and I like routine.”

“It seems like you’re awfully busy all the time.”

“I try to keep tabs on everything that happens in Anima City.”

“But Anima City is _huge!_ That can’t be realistic.”

Mayor Rose chuckled. “It’s a big task, yes.”

“You need an assistant or something.”

“Or something,” Mayor Rose agreed. “I require quite a lot from any of my assistants. I keep Ishizaki busy. Shirou’s unique capabilities make him one of my most able helpers, but he refuses to come onto payroll so I reserve him for dire situations.”

“What about me?”

Michiru noticed the wrinkles in the mayor’s forehead deepen. Mayor Rose paused in the middle of the sidewalk, head down. “If I could ethically make more beastmen with your transformation abilities, I would have some very able assistants indeed.”

“Why make more of me when I already exist? Just hire me!” Michiru’s voice was chirpy to hide the patent awkwardness of asking a major public official for a job. “I’ve already got experience, remember when I helped out with the hospital bombings?”

A few beastmen were looking at them, standing in the middle of the sidewalk. Mayor Rose moved to the side and gestured for Michiru to follow. For the first time since the conversation started, the mayor met Michuru’s eyes. “Michiru, as much as I appreciate the work you did with Shirou, and the work you do as a human representative in Anima City, you know I can’t hire you.”

Sweaty heat flew up to Michiru’s face and she was grateful for her fur which hid her human reactions. “W-why not?”

Mayor Rose stared as if trying to decide whether to laugh. Voice low, she said, “You never graduated school. I’m not trying to be cruel, but you just don’t have the qualifications.”

Tears pooled in Michiru’s eyes and she willed them to go away, furious at herself. It was ridiculous that she was clear headed in situations of life or death, but when she got rejected for a job, she started to cry. Or maybe she was overreacting because this was her second rejection of the day, and she still hadn’t figured out the reason for the first one. “I get it,” she said, hiding her fluster with flatness. “So it’s fine to ask a high school dropout to investigate criminals, but not to pay her?”

Several loiterers flashed into animal morph, their ears pricked. 

Mayor Rose took a deep breath. Speaking so softly that Michiru almost needed her rabbit ears to hear, the mayor said, “You and I both know there are two ways of getting things done. When I need evidence of an illegal gambling racket, I ask Shirou. When I need someone to file paperwork about the mayor’s office’s involvement in the investigation, I ask Ishizaki. Two sides of the same coin.”

Michiru glowered at her toes.

The mayor let out a weary sigh. “Michiru?”

“Yeah?” Michiru said sullenly.

“I’ll have Ishizaki work something out for compensation. It’s my fault for asking you to work for free when you and Shirou are in different circumstances.”

“I guess.” Michiru couldn’t stand there any longer. It was like she was receiving a public dressing down from her mother. She started to leave, but Mayor Rose threw up a hand to stop her.

“Michiru?”

“What?” Michiru snapped without meaning to, her voice cracking.

“You understand what side of the coin you’re on, right?”

* * *

When Michiru arrived at the dirt field that the Bears used to practice, only Sloth, Panda and Arai the raccoon were there. Arai sketched something out in the dirt with a stick.

“Hey guys,” Michiru said, jogging over. “What's up?”

“We've got an idea,” Panda said. He pointed to the dirt diagram. “Michiru, what do you think of sending Brownbear up to steal electricity from the power lines? Then we could resell these.” He showed her a handful of batteries. 

“That wouldn’t work,” Michiru said. “And Brownbear would probably electrocute herself. Where did you get those?”

“Jackie found them somewhere!”

“Speaking of—where is Jackie? Actually, where is everyone?”

“School started back up,” Arai said. “In the spirit of Be the Best Beastman You Can Be, most of the team is actually going to class.”

Michiru’s stomach sank at the reminder of the reason Mayor Rose had refused to hire her. “And what about you guys? Why aren’t you in school?”

“I’m too old for school,” Arai said, a trace of sadness in her voice. “But that means more time for baseball!”

“And we’re too stupid for school,” Sloth said, gesturing to herself and Panda. “It’s better to stick to what we can do.”

A lump formed in Michiru’s throat. “There’s no way that’s true.”

“It is, though! It’s what I tell people when I’m applying for jobs and they ask why I don’t have a diploma. I never get hired…”

“Oh no,” Michiru said. “You’re not stupid. Listen, I don’t have a high school diploma either. Life just gets in the way of school sometimes. I’m studying for my GED. You should study with me! I can help all of you and we can take the test together.”

“Really?” asked Arai. “Michiru, you’re the best! I was always afraid to do my GED. The part where they explode is scary.”

“Explode? Is there something about beastman GEDs that’s different from human GEDs?”

“She’s thinking of TNT,” Sloth said. “The same lady who teaches the GED course also sells TNT in a little cart that she wheels around the slums.”

“I am _not!_ ” Arai exclaimed. “I’m thinking of GEDs. They explode!”

“I think you’re thinking of IEDs,” Michiru said, and laughed for the first time since she had first woken up that morning. 

“Oooh,” the three Bears said, and because she was Michiru, they believed her. 

“Are we going to practice?” Michiru asked.

“No,” Panda said. “We gave Jackie the bat so she could use it to beat up anyone who tried to steal her lunch.”

Someone waved to the three Bears, and they dashed off, chattering about trying to sell the batteries. With no team to practice with, Michiru headed back in the direction of the co-op, newly buoyant. She wasn’t studying for her GED yet, but she would be soon, and now she had something to work towards.

A flash of white fur in the corner of Michiru’s eye caught her attention. It was Shirou, on the rooftop of a nearby building.

“Shirou!” She waved. “Guess what?”

His eyes narrowed at seeing her and turned away.

 _What the hell is wrong with this man?_ Angry, and filled with the newfound drive of having a tangible goal, Michiru summoned her wings and gave chase. Shirou moved quickly, but he couldn’t outpace a flying beastman without making it obvious that he was trying to avoid her, so he stopped on the rooftop of a bakery and let Michiru catch up. 

She landed a few yards away from him and they stared at each other. Cool wind rustled Michiru’s fur and it reminded her of something, but she couldn’t remember what. 

After a few moments, Shirou said, “What do you want?”

A hundred questions ran through Michiru’s brain but none of them were the right one. Too many times she had asked him something and he had given her an artfully evasive answer; he shared this mastery of verbal aikido with the mayor. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, willing him to stay, to speak to her. 

“If there’s nothing…” Shirou turned to leave.

“No, I-”

He stared at her levelly. Distracted, almost hypnotized by his gaze, Michiru wondered if he had been born with colorless eyes or if that was a product of immortality.

“I just remembered what my dream was about?” she said.

Neither of them had been expecting the conversation to turn in this direction. 

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Last night I dreamed I was on the road to Anima City, back before I had ever met you. Except in this dream, you were there. We got off the bus… we were looking for something.” Michiru shook her head. “I can’t remember what we were looking for.”

“Is this what you chased me down to tell me?” Shirou’s stare was intense, like he was looking straight through Michiru’s clothes to her heart.

“No-” The lump in Michiru’s throat was back, making it hard to speak. It was just Shirou. Why was talking to him suddenly so hard? Her eyes started to water, and her nose burned. Her nose twitched. Wait a second. “Shirou, don’t you smell that?”

He morphed into his wolf form just as someone down on the street screamed, “ _Fire!_ ”

Michiru flailed in a circle, trying to pinpoint the source of the fire. She should have noticed the smell of smoke. _Shirou_ should have noticed; the wolf had the best sense of smell of anyone in the city. 

“C’mon,” Shirou growled, rushing towards her and scooping her over his shoulder. He launched himself off the roof and onto the next building.

“Hey, you know I can literally fly, right? Put me down!”

But Shirou’s grip was so tight that all Michiru could do was hold on and close her eyes and trust that he wouldn’t drop her. Her stomach swooped and jumped as Shirou leaped from building to building, the winds buffeting her fur, and when he finally stopped and she dared to open her eyes, she saw smoke far off in the distance.

Panting, Shirou put Michiru down as if afraid he had broken her. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Okay? Shirou, you ran like two miles across the roofs of Anima City! Are _you_ okay?”

He whirled around and his mouth dropped open. “I didn’t mean to go that far.” He swayed on his feet and half-morphed to human, then back to wolf, before settling on human. 

“Shirou?” The panicky anger of being hauled halfway across the city drained away. Michiru put a paw on his arm and he clapped his hand over it. “Do you wanna sit? What’s wrong?” Up close she saw that the bags under Shirou’s eyes were like deep black bruises. 

But Shirou recoiled, as if the sight of her repulsed him. “I have to go,” he growled, and took off in wolf morph without another word. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -bro shut up i'm trying to remember every single detail of my dream last night-
> 
> the dream:  
> _  
> / \ _-'  
> _/| \\-''- _ /  
> __-' { | \  
> / \  
> / "O. |O }  
> | \ ;  
> ',  
> \\_ __\  
> ''-_ \\.//  
> / '-____'  
> /  
> _'  
> _-'
> 
> criticism not accepted
> 
> nah i'm just kidding roast me


	2. Shirou Oversalts the Stew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Shirou makes some really salty stew. 
> 
> and some other stuff happens i guess

No tanuki had ever been so well prepared to take her GED. Not only was she reviewing all of the material, but she was teaching it to Sloth, Panda, and Arai as well. In Arai’s defense, she didn’t need much help.

Michiru cornered Arai after their second study session together, on their way to the dirt field where they practiced. “Hey, uh, out of curiosity, how ‘come you never graduated high school?”

“Same reason lots of beastmen don’t graduate,” she said. 

_So she’s like me. She came to Anima City and chose her survival over her schooling._

“I had to move in to take care of Jackie.”

“What?”

Arai explained how Jackie’s mom had gotten really sick during Arai’s senior year of high school, and Jackie was too young to take care of herself, so Arai took care of Jackie instead. She lived with the little bear for over a year. “I was going to go back to school when Jackie’s mom got better, but she died instead. Then it was too late to go back to school.” Arai said all this both so glibly and so seriously that Michiru didn’t know how to react. 

“That’s… awful. I’m so sorry to hear-”

“It’s fine! More time to play baseball!” Arai gave a nervous laugh and waved her oven mitt-turned-baseball glove. “And we’re studying for our GEDs now, aren’t we?”

“Michiru,” Jackie called, bouncing up to them. “Did you hear about the fire yesterday?”

Boy had she heard about it. “The old warehouse, right?”

“There was a big homeless settlement in the warehouse,” Jackie said. “Almost fifty beastmen. They were alright, but now that the warehouse is gone they’ve made their new home on our practice field.” They turned the corner and arrived at the dirt field turned temporary settlement. The other Bears had already arrived and milled around the edge of the field. They all looked to Michiru. “What’re we going to do?” Jackie asked. 

Michiru hated how much faith they had in her, how trusting their eyes were. Several of the beastmen from the homeless settlement stared at the Bears suspiciously, gauging the possibility of a confrontation. Everyone knew baseball players’ reputation for violence—but the Bears’ also had an infamous reputation for incompetence. It would be so easy to suggest that the Bears take a break from practicing, since it wasn’t like practicing ever made them better. Now that most of them were back in school, maybe they should just focus on school. 

A wary beastman poked her head out of a raggedy tent behind the Bears. A silver necklace hung from her neck—Nazuna’s symbol of the silver wolf. _Nazuna._ Michiru’s hands balled. _You imagine things, jump in, make a judgement, decide that you feel sorry for other people, and then go and feel good about yourself for helping out even though no one asked you to. You’re only doing it because you want to feel good about yourself._

Somewhere out in the human world, Nazuna was probably sitting in a chair behind stage, her face dusted with makeup as she prepared for an interview about human-beastman relations. It wasn’t Michiru’s place to tell them not to play the game they loved, but what if it was the wrong love? Nazuna, what do I do now? What do I tell them?

“Michiru?” asked Jackie.

Michiru hated herself even as she said it. “Let’s skip practice today. Tomorrow we’ll find a new field.”

The bears all looked downcast at this announcement, but they scattered off in different directions, and Michiru headed back towards the co-op, the building she still couldn’t bring herself to call home.

* * *

Golden late afternoon sunlight filtered in through Michiru’s window at the co-op. _Rooftop view,_ Gem had said, so proud of the room he had given her. _This is sunflower hour,_ Nazuna called it, back when they were both human girls walking home from school. 

Michiru was suddenly hit with a wave of longing so strong she had to sit down. The bedsprings creaked and something in her pocket poked her leg. For several seconds she relished the pain, and then she pulled the object out of her pocket and held it up to the light: her old student ID card. Michiru laid back, holding the plastic card up and turning it this way and that, letting the afternoon light turn it golden. Something had scratched the ID, gouging a thick line right across the photo of herself as a human. Michiru barely recognized the girl in the picture and it chilled her. She flicked the card across the room without looking. She didn’t need another reminder right now of the person she used to be, and the life she had lost when she caught beastman-itis. 

“Careful,” Shirou rumbled. “Don’t want to lose this again.”

Michiru bolted upright. “When did you get here?”

Shirou lounged against the doorframe in his human morph. “Are you hungry?”

Michiru narrowed her eyes at him. “Maybe… Why?”

“I made food. You’d better eat. Come downstairs.” He placed her ID card down on the table, and turned and left her in her room. After a moment of consideration, Michiru followed, tiptoeing down the stairs in her bare paws. Gem and Melissa had gone out, leaving just Shirou and Michiru alone in the co-op. Michiru started to set the table, but Shirou stopped her, taking the plates from her hands. “I’ll do it. Sit down.”

Normally Michiru would have fought him for the plates but a sense of unreality had settled over the room, a strange quiet that made Michiru’s fur stand on end. She sat down and Shirou put a place setting before her, then brought over a pot from the stove. He sat across from her, the pot directly between them.

Michiru tried to move the pot to the side at the same time as he jerked it towards himself to put a ladle in it. Its contents sloshed up and splashed on Michiru’s arm. “Ow!”

Shirou stood so fast he almost knocked over the table. “Are you okay?”

Michiru hopped up and ran her arm under the sink. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Your stew is really hot.” Her fur repelled the water, and without thinking, she switched into human morph. The water cooled her smarting skin and washed off the hot liquid. Michiru grabbed a paper towel to dry herself off, then turned around to face Shirou. He had gone into wolf morph, his hackles raised. “What’s wrong?” But she knew what was wrong. “Does it bother you to be reminded that I’m human?” she teased.

Shirou seemed to consciously force himself back into human morph. As Michiru took her seat again, he said, “It does make me wonder how long you’re going to keep doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“Pretending to be a beastman. The cure exists now—why not take it?”

“I’m being a human-beastman representative-”

“No, Nazuna is doing that. You’re hanging around Anima City and playing lost cause baseball with the worst baseball team in history.”

Michiru’s face reddened and she switched back to tanuki morph to hide it. “Alright, alright, you don’t need to come for me. I was going to tell you that I’m working on getting my GED. But you ran off yesterday. Twice, actually. What was that about?”

Shirou grunted. “Try the stew.” He ladled some into her bowl.

“Don’t avoid the question, you rude furry lump.”

“Tell me what you think of my stew and maybe I’ll answer, little tanuki brat.”

Normally Michiru would have rolled her eyes and given in, but not this time. “No, I want an answer, Shirou. I don’t want to have to negotiate for whether I’ve earned it.”

Shirou leaned back in his chair, his shoulders slumped. “It’s personal.”

“Aren’t we friends?”

“ _Are_ we friends?”

Michiru grit her teeth. “Can you stop avoiding the question? Why did you keep leaving?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Just tell me.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” Michiru splayed her fingers in frustration, flexing her claws and wishing she had something to dig them into. This was an instinct that she only felt when she was in tanuki morph. 

“Just try the stew and let me think for a second.”

Michiru had never seen Shirou so agitated. Keeping a wary eye on him, she blew on a spoonful of the stew and delicately tasted it, then made a face. “This is so salty it might as well be seawater.”

Shirou tried a spoonful himself. “I don’t taste it.”

It was possible he was lying to save face, or maybe he really didn’t taste how badly he had overseasoned the stew. Michiru stirred it around, picking out vegetables and bits of meat. Maybe this loss of taste was related to his loss of smell. 

“Shirou,” she tried again, gentler this time. “Why are you avoiding the question? And why did it feel like you were avoiding me? Is something wrong? Because I noticed you weren’t healing as fast as normal, and now it seems like your sense of smell isn’t working.”

It had always been difficult to extract personal information from Shirou, but this was like trying to give a wolf a manicure. “I-” Shirou hesitated, chewing over his own words. He let out a heavy breath. “I might be sick.”

 _Sick?_ The very idea that an immortal being could get sick made Michiru feel as though she had been dunked into a vat of ice water. “Sick how?”

“It’s-”

A phone rang.

Shirou flashed into wolf morph, his ears pricked. “Whose phone is that?”

Another phone rang, at a lower dissonant pitch. This one was the landline in the kitchen.

“Should we answer?” Michiru asked, her ears echoing with the asynchronous ringing. A third phone began to ring. “Just how many phones do we have in the co-op?” She looked to Shirou, but he didn’t quite seem to know what to do either. She answered the phone. “Hello?”

Immediately all of the phones stopped ringing.

“Michiru? Is that you? It’s Mayor Rose. There’s an emergency. Where’s Shirou?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i watched the series dubbed
> 
> and what about it
> 
> let me know what u think (about the chapter, i don't accept criticism on my position in the sub/dub debate :p ). i wrote this chapter real quick so it's a bit short. don't plan to write a super long fic because i've got a short attention span. maybe 8-10 chapters.


	3. Slinkin round Rabbit Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Shirou impersonates a dog. 
> 
> fyi they visit a house of ill repute in this chapter. don't get too excited you thirsty thirsty readers. no smut.  
> &pay attention to nazuna

Michiru covered the phone receiver. “It’s for you,” she whispered.

“Who is it?” hissed Shirou.

“Mayor Rose.”

“Tell her I’m not here.”

“Why?”

Shirou placed a finger to his lips, frowning. 

Michiru uncovered the receiver. “I don’t know where he is, Mayor Rose.” She had to admit there was some vindictive pleasure in deceiving the mayor, despite the supposed emergency. After all, wasn’t there always an emergency?

“Please don’t lie to me,” Mayor Rose said. “I know perfectly well from where I’m standing that Shirou is in the kitchen with you.” 

Shirou whispered, “What’s going on?”

Michiru covered the phone. “She knows you’re here.”

The doorbell rang. “Let me in?” Mayor Rose asked. Shirou and Michiru had a quick and unintelligible conversation of competing meaningful gazes, and then Shirou let Mayor Rose inside and offered her a seat at the table. She waved him off, as if she didn’t have much time. “Shirou, there’s a situation. Can we talk privately?”

“You can say anything you need to in front of her.” Shirou tilted his head at Michiru, and Michiru smiled smugly. 

Mayor Rose gave Michiru a cool glance. “I’m afraid I can’t. Come outside with me.”

Reluctantly, Shirou followed the mayor out, glancing over his shoulder and mouthing something.

 _What?_ Michiru mouthed back. 

Shirou pointed upwards, mouthing the phrase again. “Woof,” he coughed.

“Excuse me?” said the mayor.

“Just practicing my dog sounds.”

The slam of the front door echoed through the co-op, leaving jittery silence in its wake. Something big was happening, and the mayor no longer trusted Michiru to get involved, all because Michiru had the audacity to suggest she might be useful to the mayor. A niggling, doubtful voice in the back of her mind wouldn’t leave her alone. _Is “audacity” hyperbolic, or was asking for a job really too far?_ And Nazuna’s voice, trim and prissy. _Do you only want to work for the mayor to feel good about yourself?_

“Leave me alone,” Michiru whispered to the empty kitchen. She peered out the window. Shirou stood at the door of the mayor’s black town car, apparently refusing to get in. The sunset flamed over the city, reflecting a bright glare off the roof of the car. Michiru tried to figure out what Shirou had been saying. Woof. Dog sounds. What could dog sounds have to do with anything? What had he been mouthing… Bark. Woof. Ruff. Roof! He wanted her to meet him on the roof.

Michiru couldn’t hear Shirou’s conversation with the mayor all the way from the roof, even with her rabbit ears. The mayor’s car hummed as it drove away, and when Shirou didn’t immediately come up to the roof, she wondered if she had misinterpreted him, or if he had gotten in the car with the mayor. Someone coughed behind her. “Shirou,” she exclaimed. “What’s going on?”

Shirou held out a pair of sunglasses. “The mayor wants me to track down the owner of these glasses. Says she’s been kidnapped. It’s a matter of diplomatic urgency.”

Michiru examined the pair of women’s cat-eye sunglasses, then looked up at Shirou’s shadowed eyes. “That doesn’t sound hard. For you, at least. Why the secrecy?”

Shirou stepped closer, and leaned down so his lips were by Michiru’s ear. She shivered at being so close to him, and yet not quite touching. “I didn’t want to tell you this inside because I think the mayor bugged the co-op. My sense of smell is gone,” he murmured. “So-”

“WHAT? Shirou, you need to tell the mayor, you need to go to the hospital-”

Shirou placed his paws heavily on her shoulders as if to stop her from sprouting wings and carrying him off right then and there. “It’s not a big deal, and I don’t need you telling me what to do. I think I know how to deal with this.”

“So you’ve been sick like this before? If you have then we can fix this-”

“I don’t want you to fix me,” he barked. 

“You’re going to have to stop being so stoic and accept that you need other people-”

“And you’re going to have to stop being so damn nosy all the time and accept that not everyone is a project that needs your help. Focus on yourself for once.”

Michiru stiffened and ducked away from him, her entire body vibrating as if she might burst into pieces and fly away on the wind. She opened her mouth to speak, licked her lips, and turned away. _Good luck tracking down a scent when you can’t smell anything, then._

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Shirou said, his words almost lost. 

Michiru gazed into his colorless eyes, seeing his tiredness, his stiffness, seeing how hard he worked to mask any hint of weakness. He didn’t like feeling vulnerable. He didn’t like being pitied. She couldn’t blame him. She didn’t like being pitied either. _Neither does Nazuna,_ said the quiet voice that Michiru wished would leave her alone. What happened with Nazuna was as much Nazuna’s fault as Michiru’s. Michiru wasn’t going to make the same mistake again, and Shirou deserved his privacy, especially if he was willing to be vulnerable enough to ask for it. So, despite her frothing curiosity, Michiru said, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll leave you alone.” Then, because she couldn’t quite help herself, she added, “But you will tell me if there’s anything I can do, right?”

Shirou seemed to have a silent, still argument with himself. Then he said, “There is something you can help me with.”

* * *

“Focus,” Shirou coached, monotone. “Picture the scent like a trail of dust. Everyone leaves their mark, whether they mean to or not.”

Michiru took another deep whiff from the sunglasses, her eyes closed. She was using a wolf morph for the first time, the same wolf morph that Nazuna had used to impersonate the silver wolf, which was a disconcerting experience. The farther they went, the more she felt as though she was making up what she smelled. It was like trying to pinpoint the sound of a single violin out of a whole orchestra. 

She put the sunglasses down and rubbed her nose. “Give me a second. I’m totally overwhelmed.”

“What does it smell like?” Shirou asked. 

“Floral, like perfume.”

“Perfume is good, easier to track down.”

Refreshed, Michiru smelled the sunglasses again, and then sniffed the air. “Oh! Something on the wind! Uh… uh… That way!” They followed her nose two blocks south, then a block back north, and to the west. 

The entrance to Rabbit Town loomed before them. A ripe odor of sewage mingled with the perfume in a floral-fecal fragrance and a stray spark flew from the broken fluorescent lights. Michiru glanced around. “Where is everyone?”

“Who would voluntarily be seen in Rabbit Town?” Shirou said by way of answer.

“I hate this place.”

She had never found out what had happened to those children who she had spent an afternoon teaching how to read and write. Who had taken them in when Gram Grandma was arrested? Surely they hadn’t been released back into Rabbit Town, to be bought and sold all over again. Michiru suddenly wished she had followed up on them, made sure they had been taken care of. If she had learned anything when she caught beastman-itis it was that everyone needed someone who cared about them. 

“Try not to lose focus. Where now?” Shirou asked. 

Michiru sniffed the air again. The scent of perfume was still there, lingering, as if the owner had come through here not too long ago. It led her in one direction, then another, swaying teasingly as the breeze changed. Shirou waited, patient and calm, as if he didn’t have a mysterious sickness, as if a woman hadn’t been kidnapped. He had gone into his wolf morph, and he placed his enormous paw on her shoulder and rubbed as if to comfort her. 

Michiru flinched in surprise, and he pulled back. “I wasn’t expecting that,” she said, her voice strangely high. “Um, it’s fine. It’s nice.” She swallowed. “You can keep touching me, or, or! I think we should go that way.” She pointed in the direction that the scent had settled, and they entered Rabbit Town. 

Michiru’s dumb horny brain kept circling around to that touch, the weight on her shoulder, how right it felt, how much she wanted to feel it again. She could almost feel his hand circling over the back of her neck, pressing her down… A strong whiff of perfume refocused her. “It’s this way,” she said, sidestepping an empty plastic bag that was slowly migrating down the street. The sun had almost set, and Michiru kept expecting the lamps to flick on, but instead the streets sank further and further into darkness. 

“Careful,” Shirou murmured, wrapping a paw around her shoulder and guiding her around an open pothole. Something skittered under their feet. Michiru grabbed Shirou’s arm. She didn’t need to, and if she thought anyone was watching she would push him away, but there was a girlish pleasure in holding onto him. 

Michiru’s ears perked slyly at the sound of music and raucous laughter in the distance. Like seeing a spotlight shine down from the heavens, she sensed this was where they would find the woman they were looking for. “Let’s go,” she said, pulling Shirou along through the desolate streets, suddenly desperate for the presence of sound and light and life and laughter. 

The music grew louder, but just before they turned the final corner to the place where it spilled from, Shirou grabbed Michiru and pulled her into an alley. “Listen, Michiru. You know why Rabbit Town was called Rabbit Town, right?”

She squinted up at him, trying to pick out his expression in the darkness. “…No, why?”

“Because rabbits…” He trailed off as if expecting her to finish his sentence.

“I don’t get it. What about rabbits?”

“You know the saying?”

“What saying?”

“The _saying._ ” Shirou groaned. “You know. ‘Breed like rabbits’?”

“Are you trying to tell me this is a brothel?!”

Shirou clapped his paw over her mouth. “Quiet, they keep security out front. And no, I wouldn’t call it a brothel. More like… a bordello.”

“Those are the same thing,” Michiru said, muffled against his paw. “So what should we do? Go in the back? Sneak through a window?”

Shirou climbed a rusty fire escape and Michiru followed. They got close to the roof of the bordello, examining its upper floor windows, which all had their curtains tightly drawn. “Do you know where she is?”

Michiru closed her eyes and focused on the scent. But suddenly there were fifty other scents, sweeter and hotter, that all wanted her attention. “Oh,” she mumbled, pressing her thighs together. Wetness bloomed in her underwear.

“Is something happening?” Shirou hissed.

“It smells like… sex.”

“Obviously. It’s a bordello. Focus.”

“Can’t you smell that? Shirou, I-” Michiru felt as though she was melting, pouring herself out at his feet. But of course Shirou couldn’t smell it, he couldn’t smell anything right now. Michiru pulled away, embarrassed and worried she would make him uncomfortable.

Shirou chuckled, more amused than offended. “I’m surprised it hit you so hard. Women aren’t usually affected. Pretty clever, actually, to hide her here, with so many competing scents.”

Michiru swallowed a wet mouthful of saliva and closed her eyes and focused on the scent of perfume once more. _There, the farthest window._ She pointed, and Shirou sprung into action, sliding across the roof until he was directly across the alley from the window, then jumping across the gap. He paused, first morphing just his hands to human, then morphing all the way with a concentrated frown, and climbed down to perch just outside the window. He pressed an ear to the glass. Michiru listened as well. 

Without warning, Shirou swung his fist into the glass. Damn him and his punch first philosophy. The glass shattered and a woman screamed inside the room. Shirou leaped through the broken window, and Michiru jumped through as well, with considerably more care since she would have to heal from any injuries like a normal person. 

A woman in a business suit was tied to a chair in the corner of the room, her mouth gagged. Shirou was already at the door, propping a chair under the knob to keep interlopers at bay. He ripped the gag off of the woman. “Who kidnapped you?”

“I- I don’t know-”

“What kind of beastmen? A whale? A hyena? Describe them.”

Shaking like a bird, she said, “I don’t think so- a giraffe, I remember a giraffe. And a goat, or maybe it was a sheep.”

“Did they say what they want?”

“I don’t know,” she wailed. “Ransom, probably ransom.” 

There was pounding and shouting at the door. 

“I’ll take them out,” Shirou growled. “Michiru, make sure she doesn’t get hurt.”

“No,” Michiru shouted, grabbing his arm. “We need to go. The mayor said this was a matter of diplomatic urgency.”

Shirou shook her off like a bug, grabbed the gag, flipped it inside out, and wrapped it back around the woman’s head like a blindfold. 

The door burst open, launching the chair across the room. Two burly beastmen slammed into the room, tripping over each other. A goat brayed angrily at her. “Who are you?” shouted a giraffe.

Michiru’s arms grew enormous and without thinking she swung and knocked the goat into the giraffe. She hit them once more to be sure they were properly stunned, and although Shirou would have kept hitting them until they couldn’t get back up, Michiru wasn’t ready for that level of violence. She wrapped her super-long arms around them. “Are these the ones?” she shouted to the woman. “Shirou, remove her blindfold!”

Shirou ripped the woman’s blindfold back off. “Are these the beastmen who kidnapped you?” he roared.

The woman nodded frantically, having lost the ability to speak from fear. Shirou tied them up, and then they called the police. 

* * *

The mayor and Shirou had a long conversation by one of the many lit up cop cars, while Michiru watched from a nearby alley. She wanted to try and listen in, but, remembering her earlier vow to give Shirou his privacy, she bit her lip and stayed in the shadows.

“So…” said a sly voice.

Michiru nearly jumped out of her skin. “Marie?”

“The _mink._ ”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Marie lounged against the alley wall, rolling the barrel of a broken beer bottle under her foot. “Do you know who you just saved?”

Michiru’s eyes darted from Shirou to Marie. “Someone of diplomatic importance. The mayor said so.”

“So you don’t know who they were,” Marie said maliciously. “But I do. Want to trade a secret for a secret?”

Michiru stared, trying to suss out Marie’s game.

“You want to know, I can tell. Here’s the exchange: you tell me the deal with Shirou, and I’ll tell you the name of the woman you rescued. You’re not the only one who’s noticed he’s acting different.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“If you say so.” Marie began to dissolve into the shadows. “Oh well. Your loss. When Shirou finds out who he rescued, he’s going to be _so_ mad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note: current outline says 8 chapters
> 
> note: probably just gonna publish a chapter a day until i'm done or until i get bored or until i write myself into a corner that requires more than 1 day to figure out
> 
> question: do y'all like the direction this chapter went in?  
> -especially concerning shirou's mysterious sickness which seems to be the thing people are latching onto. (pay attn to nazuna tho.) obv now that the chapter is out there i'm not gonna significantly change it, but do you find this interesting, do you think it kills the tension, etc, so i know for future chapters. PLEASE let me know; usually i leave my writing in editing hell for 1-3 years before i let anyone see it, so publishing as i go is totally flying blind for me
> 
> if u think this sucks, rip me apart 
> 
> it’s fine i’ll just cry a lot hahahaa


	4. Stop Setting Stuff on Fire!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Shirou and Michiru get into an Actual Argument.

_ Last night I had a dream. _

Music played out of the tinny headphones in one ear, and wind roared by in the other. The bus radiated heat against Michiru’s legs; she was back on that road to Anima City again. She skipped the song she was listening to, then the one after that. The next song was a good one, and she bobbed her head. The world pulsed to the beat, like she dreamed inside a snowglobe inside a pumping heart. 

_ You were with me. _

Follow the headphone wire down, down to where they rejoin into a single cable, then back up the other way, to where the other earbud is tucked in the ear of Nazuna. Nazuna flicked Michiru playfully in the cheek, mouthing along to the song, or maybe she was singing and the words were floating away on the wind.  _ Let’s take a picture, _ Nazuna said,  _ so we can remember the day we came to Anima City. _

Michiru grinned and made a peace sign for their selfie. But when she smiled she knew something was wrong. 

Nazuna hadn’t been there on that day Michiru took the bus to Anima City. Michiru looked over at her former best friend but the girl had vanished. The second earbud sang into Michiru’s other ear. Where Nazuna had been sitting, there was nothing but a rectangle of plastic that said Hiwatashi Nazuna, Student, and showed a picture of her in human form. 

Michiru picked it up. 

An arrow whizzed by and shot the ID card out of Michiru’s hand.  _ Not again. _ Michiru willed the dream to stop as more arrows whistled past-

“Michiru? Michiruuu.”

Michiru sat up with a gasp. Jackie and the Bears surrounded her in a claustrophobic circle. 

“Are you okay, Michiru?” Jackie asked. “You fell asleep on the bench.”

“I’m fine,” Michiru said. “I’ve just had a couple of late nights.”

“Late nights?” asked Arai anxiously. “Have you been studying for the GED without us?”

“Nothing like that.” Michiru flapped her hand and stood up to stretch, yawning. “I’m just worried about a friend. Let’s play ball.”

They were playing a scrimmage against the Flamingos, and being beaten, though not irreparably. At least no one had died or been injured yet. The referee signaled that halftime had ended, and Michiru stepped up to the pitcher’s mound. 

When the game ended, the Bears tied neatly with the Flamingos. In the spirit of good sportsmanship, Michiru tried to get the Flamingos to shake hands with the Bears so they could congratulate each other on a good game, but the Flamingos slunk off. 

It felt like forever since Michiru had last hung out with all the Bears, even though it had only been a week. They were still searching for a new practice field, since the homeless settlement continued to occupy the old practice field. In the meantime, the Bears had more or less given up on practicing. Michiru missed their dopiness and their full-hearted zeal for any get-rich-quick scheme that came their way, but she felt weird about pressuring them into finding a new field, or trying to adjust their practice schedule. As usual, the coach gave them minimal guidance. “Do you guys want to get pizza?” she asked. She had the money Ishizaki had finally wired her and it was burning a hole in her pocket. 

The Bears cheered for free food, and they headed towards Pizzanimal, where the coach made a strange face and mumbled something about eating alone, and split off from the group. Michiru encouraged her teammates to choose whatever they wanted on her dime, a directive which none of the Bears could follow. 

“A single slice is so expensive though,” Arai said. “We don’t want to put you out.”

“It’s fine,” Michiru tried to reassure them. “I got this money from the mayor.”

“That’s the mayor’s money?” said Jackie. “We definitely don’t want to waste it then.”

“It’s not a waste if I’m spending it on my friends,” Michiru said, frustrated, but ended up making the choice to order three pizzas because none of the Bears were willing to make the decision. As the Bears chowed down, Jackie tugged on Michiru’s hand. 

“Michiru, guess what? Yesterday I discovered the best view in the city. Wanna come see it with me?”

Her interest piqued, Michiru agreed, and grabbed a slice to go. 

“Arai,” said Jackie, “I’m taking Michiru to see the best view in the city. Come with us.”

Arai frowned, her eyes enormous behind her round glasses. “I don’t know if you should go back there…”

“C’mon c’mon c’mon! It’s perfectly safe, all the signs say keep out so we know no one else will be there!”

“Uh-” said Michiru, but she was already being dragged out of the pizza shop and down the street. Arai followed them, fretting about getting in trouble. 

“How come we don’t see Miss Deesse Louve any more?” Jackie asked. “She was the one who told me to Be the Best Beastman You Can Be. You were friends, weren’t you?”

“Her name is actually Nazuna,” Michiru said stiffly. “And she’s off doing a world tour as a human-beastman representative.”

“Why do we always say human-beastman?” Arai asked. “Why never beastman-human?”

Michiru puzzled over this. Her initial reaction was to say that human-beastman just sounded better, but somehow she didn’t think this was actually true. 

“What about the other wolf guy?” asked Jackie. “The tall scary one with the really deep voice? He used to come watch us play games sometimes. I didn’t see him at the scrimmage today.”

Hollowness rang in Michiru’s chest. Shirou was avoiding her again; she hadn’t seen him in almost a week. Knowing how Shirou liked to haunt high places at night, she had taken to making herself available on the roof of the co-op after sunset, in case he wanted to come talk to her without making it obvious he had sought her out. She didn’t know why she wanted to talk to him so badly. Perhaps she wanted to ask if he was okay, if his sickness was getting better. But a guilty part of her also wanted reassurance that their relationship hadn’t been damaged, that they really were friends and not occasional partners of convenience. 

Michiru’s stomach twisted at the idea that Shirou might not want to talk to her. 

“Where are we going?” she asked to change the subject. 

“We’re here!” 

Jackie had used some mysterious power of authorial impatience to bring them to the docks of Anima City. Michiru didn’t recognize this area. Barriers and signs reading  _ Keep Out _ marked it off, but the rust covered the barriers and the signs hung crooked as if they had been there for months. Jackie climbed over a knocked-over barrier, and after exchanging an apprehensive glance, Arai and Michiru followed her into the warehouse. 

“Woah.” Michiru couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Murals decorated the walls of the warehouse from floor to ceiling. They depicted Anima City, glittering from across the bay, in such minute detail that from far away it could have been a photograph. There was the hospital, its strange spiky shape characterizing Anima City’s skyline. “This is amazing.” She spotted a tag at the bottom, labeling the artist as  _ Hieranonymus. _

“We shouldn’t be here,” Arai said. “Something isn’t right.”

Michiru’s ears stood at alert. For a moment she thought she heard footsteps and the sloshing of liquid, but doubted herself. She was probably hearing the bay against the docks. And it seemed like it would be a shame to drag them out of there when Jackie was rightfully proud—this was a cool discovery. 

They took a seat on an abandoned pallet and finished their pizza. 

Jackie started to say, “Do you think-“ and then the ceiling came crashing down. 

Michiru’s tanuki tail ballooned out to protect her friends. The ceiling suffocated her, crushing the breath her lungs. “Jackie?” she called out. “Arai?” 

“Michiru! Where are you?” wailed Jackie from somewhere under Michiru’s tail. 

“I’m here,” Michiru grunted, focusing on the weight of the ceiling. “Don’t move, I’ve got you.”

Arai didn’t respond. Michiru didn’t dare try and look for her—if Arai wasn’t under her tail, she might be buried elsewhere, and any movement might accidentally shift part of the ceiling onto the raccoon. The safest action, for the moment, was to hold still and hope that someone came and rescued them soon. She could at least protect Jackie. 

Then Michiru smelled smoke. “No, no no!”  _ Not another fire. _ She pulled Jackie in closer, feeling the collapsed ceiling shift above them, trying to remember where Arai had been sitting. A few feet to Michiru’s left. “Arai?” she shouted. “Are you there?”

The smoke began to bear thickly down on Michiru. If she waited any longer she might not have the strength to lift the roof and get Jackie out. She groaned with the effort of moving the ceiling out of the way and burst out into the open air, morphing to bird form and lifting Jackie away from the rubble. One of the walls of the warehouse had collapsed, bringing the roof down with it, and smoke rose all around from the nearby warehouses. “Do you see Arai?” Michiru circled the rubble, searching for anything, a paw, or part of the raccoon’s glasses.

“There!” Jackie pointed to a pillar of smoke. Michiru flew away and placed Jackie with a group of observers that had formed, then dove back towards the warehouse. “Michiru, wait!”

Michiru’s eyes burned as she flew through the smoke and dug her paws into the rubble of the collapsed roof. “Arai,” she kept shouting, hoarser and hoarser, and just as she thought she saw the gleam of Arai’s coke bottle glasses, she passed out. 

* * *

The first thing Michiru felt when she woke up was the uneven asphalt docks under her back. Then she opened her eyes. Jackie and Shirou stared down at her.

“You’re alive!” Jackie exclaimed.

Shirou’s expression was intense, almost angry. “What happened?”

Michiru looked from one friend to the other. “We were exploring and the roof collapsed on us.”

“The whole dock is on fire.”

Michiru propped herself up on a sore elbow. The sound of chaos slowly registered in her brain. Beastmen shouting, the wail of fire engines and ambulances. “Where’s Arai?”

“In an ambulance. She’ll survive.”

Michiru didn’t know why Shirou was saying these things in an accusatory tone, as if it was her fault that the roof fell in on them, or that Arai had been trapped. She turned to Jackie. “What happened? How did she get out?”

Jackie shifted from foot to foot, rubbing her nose, and Michiru noticed the young girl had red eyes like she had been crying. “I followed you in. Mr. Wolf followed me in. Together we got you and Arai out.”

_ Really? _ Michiru frowned in wonderment at her naive, silly friend. 

Shirou scoffed. “You should go to the hospital.”

“No!” exclaimed Jackie. “That’s so expensive.”

Shirou made a face, but Michiru agreed. The last thing she wanted to do was spend the rest of the day strapped to a hospital bed. She had bad memories of that hospital. Weakly, she said, “I’d rather just go to the co-op.”

Shirou grit his teeth like he was fighting his own instinct to argue with her, then stalked off to hail a cab. Jackie helped Michiru to her feet.

“Are you gonna be okay?” Jackie asked. “We need our ace.”

“I’ll be fine.” Michiru coughed painfully. “Need water, though.”

Jackie fetched her a bottle of water from one of the ambulances, and led her over to where Shirou waited with a cab. “Get some rest, okay?” She sniffled. “Don’t strain yourself.”

Michiru waved gratefully as the cab pulled away from the chaos of the docks. Then she looked over at Shirou, sitting next to her in the cab. He crossed his arms and leaned away, staring pointedly out the window. 

“Thank you, too,” she whispered. “I don’t know how you knew where I was.”

He didn’t answer.

“Shirou?” Michiru coughed and she opened the water bottle and drank messily. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Still, silence.

“I hate when you do this,” she rasped. “You ignore me like you’re punishing me but I don’t know what I did wrong. If you’re angry then tell me.”

“I’m not trying to punish you,” he said.

“Then what’s wrong? Why did you disappear for a week? I don’t understand you.” Michiru fell into another coughing fit, this one wracking her body with spasms until she doubled over, out of breath, her chest aching. When she could breathe again, Shirou had his hand hovering over her back. 

“I worry when-” He caught his breath, searching her face with strangely tender eyes. Abruptly he shifted away, resuming his closed off posture. “This is the fourth fire in less than two weeks. I think there’s a pattern.”

Afraid of triggering another coughing fit, Michiru waited for him to explain, and wished she had the energy to tell him off for changing the subject like he always did. 

“There have been whispers about the new buyer of Rabbit Town. Something is going on in the underworld. Normally I’d have this wrapped up by now. It’s taking me longer than usual without my sense of smell.”

Michiru blinked, surprised he had brought up the smell thing on his own. “How is that, by the way? Your-” She coughed. “-your sense of smell?”

“Thought it was getting better. Now it’s gone again.”

“Could it be the smoke?”

He looked away. Not for the first time, Michiru had the infuriating feeling that he knew exactly what was wrong. Why wouldn’t he just tell her? She knew by now that he’d never answer a direct question. The only way to find out was to keep him talking. “Who’s the new buyer of Rabbit Town?” she rasped.

Shirou curled his lip. “A human.”

“Is that legal? I thought Anima City was just for-”

“The laws say humans can’t live in the beastman special zone, but there are no regulations against humans buying land here because no one ever thought a human would want to. We made the wrong assumption. And now, like all humans, they’re going to ruin something good, and special, and sacred.”

“Not all humans are like that,” Michiru whispered. “We’ve both seen Rabbit Town. It’s not in good shape. It could use some investment. Maybe this will be a good thing.”

“This is just the beginning,” Shirou muttered darkly. “Once humans realize they can buy land in the beastman special zone, they’ll renovate our homes out of existence. They’ll build new apartment buildings and raise the rent higher than most beastmen could ever afford.”

“That can’t be legal.”

“This is a loophole that the humans left on purpose when they created the beastman special zone. I’m sure of it. They wait until we all gather in one place, and then they destroy our homes. It starts with places no one cares about, like Rabbit Town, and once we get used to it, it infects the whole zone. Then we’re back where we started. Homeless and hated. The slums grow denser and all beastmen suffer.  _ This _ is why I hate humans,  _ this _ is why humans can’t be trusted.”

Shirou flashed his teeth like he was ready to go into wolf morph and rip apart the taxi cab from the inside. The driver watched them nervously in the rearview mirror.

“You hate all humans?” Michiru whispered. “Even me?”

Shirou didn’t answer. She knew he was too proud to retract his statement, and it made fury boil in her chest. 

“You’re different,” he said. “You said it yourself: you’re part beastman now too.”

“On the inside I’ll always be human. One hundred percent world-ruining, life-wrecking human. That’s who you’ve been hanging around with, Shirou. Don’t forget it.”

Michiru wanted him to react. She wanted to goad him into getting so angry that he let the wall he built around himself come crashing down; she wanted him to come out of the gate swinging with the truth that she knew he was hiding.

“You’re too proud for your own good,” she said finally. The cab pulled over in front of the co-op and they got out. Michiru swayed and without thinking, even though they were mad at each other right now, Shirou supported her by the elbow and she leaned against him. Quietly, so she didn’t cough, she said, “Either you’ll have to admit that you hate me too, or you’ll have to admit that your blanket hatred of humans is as much a prejudice as the human hatred of beastmen. I’m not saying humans haven’t hurt beastmen in the past. But things are complicated.” The day she had woken up and seen the glittering eyes of a tanuki staring back at her in the mirror, Michiru had seen the line between certainty and uncertainty blur irreparably. 

Michiru wrenched her arm away and went into the co-op, and Shirou didn’t follow. A hole ached in her heart where Nazuna used to be. Nazuna would have understood. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> u know what i really love about this show? it brazenly fills its extended cast with female characters. no one woulda blinked if the bears were an all-male baseball team or if the henchmen in the rabbit town episode were dudes. but bna didn’t even make a big deal out of it. they get snaps from me for that
> 
> i'm also obsessed with the fact that all the police officers are dogs. *chef's kiss* you're doing amazing sweetie


	5. The Starshine Lounge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Shirou gives a piggyback ride.
> 
> some discussion of drugs. i can’t stress enough how much i don’t endorse doing drugs that aren’t prescribed to you.

The GED study sessions shifted to Arai’s hospital room, and when the hospital released her, they shifted to the library room in the co-op. A week passed with neither hide nor hair of Shirou. At first Michiru spent her free hours combing over their argument, composing clapbacks in the shower, and sullenly wishing he had a phone so she could call or text him and tell him off for being an asshole. But the longer she went without seeing him, the more she began to think, _he’d better not show his face around here._ If hating humans was his final answer then she never wanted to see him again.

Or so she told herself. 

The GED study sessions between Arai, Panda, and Sloth turned into a full Team Bears after-school homework group. At first only Jackie came to help Arai out because she had been ordered on vocal rest due to smoke inhalation. The other Bears followed. 

“I didn’t know this many books existed in the entire world,” said Brownbear when she first saw the library. 

Sloth and Panda seemed pretty chill about the upcoming GED test. “Either we pass it or we don’t,” Sloth explained. “But we think we’re ready.”

Despite Sloth and Panda’s middling scores on the practice tests and difficulty with the math questions, they were proving more competent test-takers than Arai, who got so nervous during about tests that she trembled, took long bathroom breaks in fear of throwing up, and once swooned halfway through a speed review session when Michiru asked her the square root of nine. 

They walked together to city hall to sign up for the next GED test. Sloth and Panda went in ahead to collect the forms they needed to fill out, and Arai sat next to Michiru on an armchair with a squishy plastic seat in the waiting room. The chair dwarfed her. 

“The bathroom was down the hall,” Michiru noted. Arai looked like she might be about to hack up her lunch. 

Arai turned to Michiru. “I don’t want to do this.”

“What? Why not?”

“You’ve seen how bad I am at the tests. I’ll fall apart five minutes in and spend the whole time in the bathroom. The GED is so expensive. I don’t want to waste money when I already know I’ll fail.” Sloth and Panda returned with the forms, and sat a few seats away to fill them out. Arai looked at the GED registration form with wide-eyed panic. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

“Can I ask you a question?” said Michiru gently. “When we’re studying you know all of the information. You do great on untimed tests. What changes when we put on the timer that makes everything so much harder?”

Arai shook her head. “I don’t know. My stomach starts to hurt, and my mouth gets dry, and I get so afraid of doing the wrong thing that I can’t do anything at all. It’s like there’s suddenly a glass wall between me and the answers. I see what they are but I can’t get them out.”

Michiru thought if they had more time they might be able to work on Arai’s test anxiety, help her understand her reaction and how to mitigate it. But the GED was scheduled in only a few days, and Sloth and Panda clearly intended to take it. So did Michiru. Michiru wanted them all to take it together—she knew the likelihood of Arai passing the GED decreased drastically without the support of her friends sitting the test with her. 

But she didn’t want to pressure the anxious raccoon to take the GED just so Michiru could feel good about herself. 

Or was Michiru letting Arai chicken out of the GED in order to avoid feeling bad about herself for pushing her?

“What if,” Michiru said, thinking fast, “there was a way to keep you from getting so nervous during the test? Like a temporary cure?”

“I wish.”

Back in high school Michiru knew some of her classmates used prescription drugs, the kinds that increased concentration or reduced anxiety, to enhance their test performances. “There’s a pill I know,” Michiru said. “It could help you calm down. We could try it out before the actual test. I’ll get some for you.”

“I don’t know.” Arai’s brow furrowed. “That doesn’t sound… safe.”

“It’s like a chill pill,” Michiru promised. “I’ll take some too so we both know what it’s like. Let’s fill out the forms now, and if you don’t like how it feels you don’t have to do it.”

Michiru collected the registration forms and brought them back to the box to submit them when she spotted the mayor, walking out of the building. She shoved the registration forms in the box and jogged over. “Mayor Rose.”

“Michiru Kagemori,” the mayor said warily. “How are you today?”

“I just registered to take the GED,” Michiru bragged.

“That’s exciting news. Congratulations.”

“I haven’t passed it yet. But when I do pass it…” Michiru shifted from one foot to the other, trying to decide how to word this. “There’s a lot of things I want to talk about. I don’t mean coming to work for you, though if we could revisit that too-” She shook her head firmly. “I want to talk to you about Rabbit Town.” _And maybe about Shirou._

The mayor cocked her head. “I’m headed to a board meeting right now, but we can set up an appointment. I’ll have Ishizaki contact you.”

* * *

Michiru had no idea how to buy drugs. This was the kind of thing Shirou could probably have helped with, even if he disapproved, but Shirou wasn’t around. _And good riddance,_ she added. 

There was one other beastman who Michiru could think of to help her: Marie, the ~~weasel~~ mink.

Marie had a talent for showing up before people made it known they were looking for her. She slunk out of an alleyway as Michiru wandered around downtown Anima City. 

“Here to reconsider my offer?” she asked. “City hall is still standing, so I know Shirou still doesn’t know who it was you guys rescued.”

Michiru narrowed her eyes. “I’m not interested in playing your games. And Shirou and I aren’t talking right now, so it doesn’t matter.”

“If you’re not here to play games,” Marie asked in a silky, flirty voice, “then what are you here for?”

If there was a protocol, or a special code involved in these transactions, Michiru was about to ignore it. “I want to buy drugs.”

Marie snorted. “What, all of them?”

Michiru told her the name of the prescription drug she had heard about. 

Marie tapped her chin, grinning. “I could get that for you… for a price.”

“I don’t know if you’re trying to, like, draw out the tension, but obviously I know there’s a price. Just tell me how much.”

“It’s not a matter of how much, but rather a matter of what.”

“I’m not talking to you about Shirou.” Especially given that Shirou wouldn’t even tell her what was wrong. 

“Of course not!” Marie said in an offended voice. “You made your position on that clear. I was thinking more like a favor. Come out with me tonight. To a party.”

“Why? Don’t have any actual friends to go with you?”

“No, I’m planning to slip poison into your drink and off you once and for all,” Marie snapped, and Michiru wondered if she had touched a nerve. 

She made a show of rolling her eyes. “Fine. When and where?”

“The Starshine Lounge, 11:30. Meet me out front. Please, for once in your life, put on something cute.” Marie paused. “You’re, like, legal, right?”

“Yeah, I’m overage.”

“Good. People weren’t sure. See you!”

* * *

Exercise shorts and tank tops littered the floor of Michiru’s room. She had never realized how homogeneous her wardrobe was until this very moment. Since she had always worn a uniform to school, she never had much use for fashion. 

Michiru ran downstairs to Melissa’s office, where the woman sometimes worked during the day. “Melissa?”

Melissa looked up from a half-marked file. “How can I help you?”

“I want to go to a, um, a party tonight, but I don’t have a dress. Do you have anything I could borrow?”

Melissa gave Michiru an appraising look and brought her up to the master closet and pulled out a couple of dresses that she called “formal clothes”. 

Michiru laid an 80s style power-suit against her body. 

“Maybe if it were a theme party,” Melissa said regretfully. “Or if I had saved any of my clothes from when I was your age. That was eons ago.”

Michiru went up to the roof to think. She didn’t want to spend money on clothing that she would never wear again. _What would Shirou advise?_ She twisted her lips. _Who cares what Shirou would think. He’d tell me not to go. Good riddance to that asshole._

_Or maybe he’d like to see me in a dress?_

Michiru burned at the thought. She tugged at the neckline of her top, as if Shirou were right there, staring down her shirt.

_What would Nazuna advise?_

Immediately Nazuna’s voice bubbled up, unbidden. _Borrow some of my clothes, we’re the same size._

Michiru still had the key to the balcony door of Nazuna’s apartment. Without thinking or stopping to question her judgement, she flew across the street, landed on the balcony, and unlocked the door. Nazuna hadn’t even changed the lock, as if she had left an invitation, hidden months ago, for Michiru to come back. 

The room hadn’t changed. Still full of ridiculous crystals and pompous wall hangings. All the accoutrements of the silver wolf’s mystique. Michiru drew her paw through the gauzy canopy.

“I thought being back here would feel weird,” she said to the empty room. “But the really weird thing is how normal this feels. It’s like you just stepped out.” She sat down on the tall princess bed, her feet dangling off. The room even smelled like Nazuna, like that perfume she loved. They had gone shopping one weekend before either of them caught beastman-itis, and gone into an adult lingerie shop, the kind that advertised with photos of nearly naked women. The girls teased each other, excited and nervous but pretending not to be. 

_“Dare you to buy that,”_ Michiru said, pointing to a black lacy piece.

_“It’s got so many straps and cutouts. I’d take it home and never figure out how to get it on.”_

_“Dare you to buy anything, then.”_ Michiru grabbed a bottle of perfume in the shape of a heart and spritzed it in Nazuna’s direction. _“Mmm. Smells like Eau de Striptease.”_

 _“Michiru!”_ Nazuna took it from her. _“It’s called…”_ Her eyes went wide. _“‘Sex on Paradise Isle Eau de Parfum.”_

 _“You_ have _to buy it now.”_

To Michiru’s surprise Nazuna actually did buy it, and wore it every chance she got. 

“Nazuna,” Michiru sighed, flopping back onto Nazuna’s bed. Memories unfolded like an accordian, layer on layer of experiences Michiru had shared with Nazuna in this very room: the first night Michiru had confronted her about moving into the building across the street from the co-op; singing their song together while working out the set list for that fateful concert. After the whole business with Sylvasta, Nazuna invited Michiru over for a surprise. She had procured tapes of the last season of their favorite show, which neither had been able to keep up with after coming to Anima City. They stayed up into the early hours of morning, sustaining on soda and unhealthy snacks that Nazuna complained would give her pimples even as she kept eating them. That night had been their first kiss. 

Then there had been so many more kisses in this room.

Michiru sat up, forcefully banishing the memories. “Alright,” she announced to the empty room. “Let’s see what’s in the closet.”

As expected, Nazuna had left a lot of her clothes behind. Michiru flipped through the hangers, focusing on color and shape, trying not to think about the associated memory each dress carried. She stopped when her hand passed over a silver-white dress. It was the dress Nazuna had worn for the concert on the night Shirou battled Alan Sylvasta.

It wasn’t Michiru’s style, but she reached inside the skirt and detached the petticoats that fluffed the skirt, turning the dress into something more wearable for the street. 

“I hope you don’t mind.”

The dress fit. 

Michiru arrived outside the Starshine Lounge a few minutes before 11:30, pulling her jacket tight around herself. The dress didn’t reveal any more skin than she usually showed, but wearing a skirt was more vulnerable than shorts. Someone could reach under so easily. She kept feeling behind her to make sure the skirt hadn’t ridden up. 

The bouncer was letting everyone in. Michiru wasn’t sure whether 11:30 was still early for clubs, or whether this simply wasn’t a popular location, though it was in the middle of the trendy nightlife district. 

“Heyy!” someone slurred, tapping Michiru on the shoulder, but when Michiru turned around, the wolverine woman jumped back. “Omigod I thought you were someone else.”

Michiru smiled uneasily. Everyone here was in their beastman morph. She checked her phone; Marie was late. 

Finally Marie appeared, wearing a black bandage dress. “You’re here, and not looking too shabby,” she purred. “Let’s go in.”

“Wait.” Michiru caught Marie’s arm. “Can you tell me what’s going on first?”

Marie rolled her eyes as if Michiru was causing her some great inconvenience. “I was going to tell you inside. The deal is that someone is infringing on my territory and I know sometimes they operate in the Starshine Lounge. I want to find out who they are. But I’ve received a tip that they roll with backup and I don’t want to get cornered. You’ve got big arms. Sometimes. So you’re here to get me out of a possible sticky situation.” Marie waved a baggie with a few pills in it. “This is a reward for a job well done.”

“That’s all I get?”

“C’mon.” Marie tucked the baggie down her top, winked at the bouncer who nodded with familiarity and stamped both their hands, and led Michiru inside. 

Beastmen milled around at the bar, some at tables, and a few young women danced to the warmup DJ’s set, but otherwise the club was quiet. It had a second floor, and that was where Marie brought her.

“This place isn’t the trendiest, but it’ll get going in an hour or so,” Marie said in Michiru’s ear. “Settle in, you might be here awhile. Want a drink on me?” She laughed at Michiru’s surprise. “C’mon chica, you drink, right?”

“Sure I do,” Michiru said, pulling her jacket tighter. 

“And take that off, you look like a scared private school student.” Marie manhandled the jacket from Michiru’s shoulders and tied it around her waist. “Ooh, cute dress.” She snapped one of the spaghetti straps. “Alright, be right back.”

Michiru leaned against the bar of the balcony, looking over the dance floor. The building thumped with the pulse of the DJ’s set. Every few seconds a colored light flashed over her, but mostly she was an anonymous figure in the steaming darkness. The dance floor had already begun to fill up when Marie returned. 

“These were a pain to get,” Marie said, handing over a glass of dark liquid and leaning back against the balcony. “So, guessing based on the fact that you’ve been standing here for the last twenty minutes—first time out?”

“Mhm. I was still underage when I left home.”

“What?”

Michiru repeated herself, shouting over the music.

“I can’t imagine what that was like.”

“Don’t try. It sucked.” Michiru swallowed a mouthful of the liquid and made a face. It was both sweet and potently alcoholic. “How old were you when you came to Anima City?”

“Around the age you are now. That’s ancient history.” Marie waved, seeing someone she knew across the balcony. “Gotta talk to them. I might be a bit. Have fun, but not too much fun. Remember you’re my muscle.”

Michiru sighed and took another sip of her drink, trying not to let it show on her face how nasty it tasted. Her first club experience should have been with Nazuna. “This dress was a mistake,” she mumbled, knowing no one would hear her. 

Then, entering the club, she spotted a strange sight—three beastmen in human morph, wearing animal masks, like the humans from the beastman-themed party she had gone to on the mainland. Why wouldn’t they just use their beastman morph? Were they hiding their animal identities?

Were they humans?

Irresistibly curious and already tipsy, Michiru hurried to get a closer look, shoving her way through a group of men making their way up the stairs. She wove through the beastmen at the tables, then slid against the wall along the dance floor, searching for the people in animal masks. She spotted them, heading for a door blocked off by velvet rope and guarded by a burly mountain lion. She elbowed her way through the crowd to intercept them and get a closer look.

A woman stumbled into the mask-wearers and knocked the mask off one of them. The woman whose mask was knocked off yanked it back into place, but not before Michiru saw her face. She was the same woman they had rescued in Rabbit Town. A chill ran through Michiru and without thinking she took another sip of her drink. The woman saw the tanuki girl loitering and sneered. “Jealous, rat?”

Michiru bared her teeth, and her ears turned into rabbit ears without her meaning to. 

“The bus to Anima City leaves at midnight,” the woman said to the bouncer, and showed him her ID card.

“Welcome, Ms. Tsunoda,” the bouncer said, and let the mask-wearers past the velvet rope.

Michiru watched the close behind them. She had to know what was up there. She took another long sip of her drink, then went up to the bouncer. “Excuse me, what’s in there?”

“Private,” he said. “Humans only.”

“I didn’t know humans went to clubs in Anima City.”

The bouncer grunted, staring out over her head.

“I’m a human.”

He looked her up and down. “Sure you are.”

Michiru wove her way through the sweat and sound and sensation back to the second floor, dodging stray elbows and tails. One moose had cleared a circle with his enthusiastic head banging. She nursed her drink against the back wall of the second floor, scanning the balcony for Marie. _Tsunoda,_ she repeated to herself, over and over. The name wasn’t familiar. She pulled out her phone and looked up _Tsunoda Anima City_ but got hundreds of unrelated search results. She puzzled, and tried _Tsunoda Rabbit Town._

The first search result was a news headline reading: _Partner of Rabbit Town buyer kidnapped and held for ransom_. She clicked the link. 

A human named Tsunoda had bought Rabbit Town. The woman they had rescued, his wife and business partner, had been held hostage. The ransomers had been demanding an absurd amount of money. 

Michiru’s stomach dropped. Rescuing a human was one thing. Being tricked into rescuing a human who stood for everything Shirou hated was another. 

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” said a deep voice that cut through the din.

Michiru’s mouth dropped open as she stared up at Shirou. She darkened her phone screen and instinctively crossed her arms high over her chest. “I didn’t expect to see you here either. Doesn’t seem like your scene.”

He wore khakis and a white button down, his chest fur spilling out over the top of his shirt. Michiru spent several seconds looking him up and down. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him out of his white overcoat and black top and pants. 

“Well,” she shouted over the roar of voices and the pulse of the beat, taking a large gulp of her drink, “I don’t know if you’re stalking me or what, but tonight you should find someone else to piss off.”

He leaned in close so they could hear each other better. “You look nice.”

“I told you to piss off.”

“Why not accept the compliment?”

Michiru flashed her teeth at him. “Maybe the domineering act works on other girls, but I know you and I’m not gonna have it.”

“I don’t compliment other girls.”

Michiru took another gulp of her drink. The more she drank the easier it went down. “Maybe you don’t remember but we’re mad at each other right now.”

Shirou looked at something over her shoulder, and Michiru turned to see who it was.

“Hey, Shirou, what’s up?” said Marie. She slung an arm around Michiru’s shoulder, and said close to her ear, “New tip off is they’re not going to be here tonight. So you’re off the hook.” She spun Michiru around, fixed her hair, and pretended to adjust the straps of her dress. “You look cute tonight, y’know.”

Michiru tried to bat Marie’s hands away. “It’s never gonna happen.”

Marie pressed up against her, chest to chest, and slipped the baggie of pills down the front of Michiru’s dress. “You wish, tanuki.” She spun on her heel and melted into the throngs of partiers. 

“What was that about?” Shirou asked.

Michiru shook her head. “Just Marie being Marie.” She took a sloppy sip of her drink.

“You want to slow down there? I don’t recall you being a heavy drinker.”

“And I don’t recall us being friends,” Michiru snapped back. 

Shirou’s shoulders slumped and he stared out into the pulsing darkness above the dance floor. “Can we get out of here? This isn’t a good place to have a conversation.”

Michiru finished her drink in three enormous, painful swallows. She had a revelation. She did want to talk to Shirou. Badly. She slammed her drink down on a nearby table in the middle of someone else’s conversation, ignoring their bristles, and grabbed the wolf by the paw and led him outside. 

“Careful,” he said as she tripped on her way out. 

“I don’t really wanna walk,” Michiru realized out loud. 

“No, of course you don’t,” Shirou said sarcastically. He crouched down. “Climb on.”

Michiru climbed on his back, barely sparing a thought for the indignity of doing so in a dress. “Where’re we going?”

“My apartment.”

“You have an apartment?” she exclaimed.

“Where do you think I’ve been staying?”

“Mm.” Michiru closed her eyes and let him carry her along. The sounds of the nightclub faded. Shirou’s gait rocked her and she began to fall asleep. 

“We’re here,” he said. “Get down.”

They were at the door of a copy-paste apartment in a complex of identical apartments. She slid off his back and stumbled trying to get her feet under her. “Sorry for getting so drunk.”

“I’m the one who should apologize,” he muttered as he unlocked the door and flicked on the lights. 

“Ooh, the mighty silver wolf is apologizing. I’m honored.” Michiru peered around at his apartment. It contained enough furniture to look livable, but no personal accents, like a lazily decorated movie set. Shirou sat her down on the couch and perched himself at the other end. “Shirou?” she asked when he didn’t say anything. “What’re you apologizing for, exactly?”

His ear flicked several times, and he scratched it like he was telling it to be still. Without looking at her, he said, “I didn’t mean to make you think I don’t like you. I do like you.”

Michiru wished she could remember any of the dozen arguments she had rehearsed in the shower. She inched closer to him. “And?”

“And what?”

“That’s not the reason I was mad at you.”

“Was? Past tense?”

Michiru recoiled. “Damn it, Shirou, you always do this! Stop redirecting my words. You’ll do anything to avoid having an honest conversation. _That’s_ part of why I’m mad at you.”

Shirou growled a horrible, frustrated sound. Whether the frustration was directed towards Michiru or himself was unclear. “There are some things that are… very hard for me to talk about. Especially with you.”

“Why?” Michiru begged, pouring all of her desire to know into her voice. She pressed toward him again and he seemed to lean away as if he was afraid to let her get too close.

“You’re young, and pretty, and open-minded. I’m old and set in my ways. I told you a long time ago that beastmen are stubborn. Sometimes I need time proportionate to my age to come around to certain things.”

Michiru mulled over his words. “...You think I’m pretty?”

“Didn’t you hear the rest of what I said?”

Michiru grinned. “What I want to know,” she said, picking her words carefully and inching ever closer to him, “is whether you really do hate all humans, or-“

“I don’t hate all humans.”

“You’re just saying that.”

He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her onto his lap so they were face to face. “I don’t know how I’ll ever get you to believe this, but I don’t hate all humans. I know that now.”

“Shirou...” Michiru curled up and lay her head against his warm, solid chest. “I think I’m sick.”

He gazed down at her, one hand stroking her head, carefully caressing the curve of her ear. “You think you’re going to _be_ sick?”

“No. I think I _am_ sick. I have been for weeks.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“I keep having these dreams where you’re nice. But then I wake up and you’re distant again. And then you act like this, and it’s confusing. Sometimes I worry you’re dying. Sometimes it’s me who’s dying.”

“I’m not dying.” Shirou’s voice rumbled in his chest, sending vibrations through Michiru’s cheek.

“Then why won’t you tell me what’s wrong with you? Your super-smell is broken, you’re healing slowly, sometimes it seems like you’re struggling to morph.” No answer. “I feel like...” She yawned and snuggled her cheek into him. A dulled part of her brain knew she would be embarrassed by all this in the morning, but a thick sheen of alcohol flattened her inhibitions. “When I’m with you, I feel like I don’t know what’s real.”

Shirou sighed. In a very quiet voice, he said, “When I’m with you everything feels like a dream.”

Michiru yawned. “What’d you say?”

“Nothing. You need to drink water or you’ll get a hangover.”

“Let me stay here with you tonight.”

Michiru registered with foggy surprise that Shirou agreed without even pretending to be aggravated. He shifted her over so he could get up and fetch her a glass of water. Michiru sprawled on the couch, the world huge and chilly without his solidity to lean back against.

“Come back,” she whined.

“I’m coming, you brat. Sit up, drink this.”

Michiru hadn’t realized how thirsty she was until that moment. Water dribbled from the corners of her lips as she gulped it down. When she finished she slumped against Shirou’s shoulder, and he tried to take the glass from her, but she grabbed his paw and raised it to her lips.

Holding his breath, he let her.

She pressed the back of his paw to her mouth and let his fur absorb the water.

“Michiru-“ He sounded strangely choked up.

“What?”

“You make everything so much harder.”

She giggled. Vague innuendos and a half-recalled conversation with another friend from that morning whizzed through her mind, too quick to shape into a coherent thought. “How so, mister silver wolf?”

He switched into human morph and pressed his lips to her forehead. “We’ll talk later. You’re drunk right now. I want you to be thinking clearly.”

Michiru yawned, too tired and foggy-headed to argue. “As long as you promise you’ll tell me when I wake up.”

“I promise.”

“Okay then. Goodnight,” she mumbled, and laid down, her head cushioned on Shirou’s thighs, and slept without dreaming.


	6. Dear Lover, am I a Shitty Person?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Shirou flushes the toilet; Michiru contemplates philosophy.

“Wake up. What the hell is this?”

Michiru opened her eyes and struggled to remember where she was. Clean apartment, bland colors… a baggie of pills being shaken in front of her nose, and Shirou, in human morph, his face furious. Her hand flew to her chest and she scrambled to sit up, flattening her skirt, soreness shooting down her body. “Where did you get that?”

“It fell out of your dress. What are you doing with prescription drugs?”

“It’s not what it looks like.”

“Then what is it?”

“They’re not for me.”

He crushed the bag in his hand, pulverizing one of the pills. “Is this why you were with Marie last night? Buying pills?”

Michiru frantically attempted to smooth out her hair. Her mouth felt like it had been swabbed dry with toilet paper. “Technically I didn’t buy anything, I exchanged a favor.”

“ _What are they?_ ” he snarled.

“They’re to relax you, they’re for a friend because she has test anxiety. I wanted her to be able to take the GED with us-”

“So not only are you distributing drugs, but you’re trying to gain an advantage on the GED-”

“Not _my_ GED-”

“Somehow that’s worse.” He stalked to the bathroom, taking the baggie with him, and Michiru realized what he was about to do a second too late. The toilet flushed.

“Shirou,” she wailed, “I needed those.”

“I thought they were for your friend,” he said flatly.

“Same difference!”

“It’s not.” He paced as Michiru curled up on the couch, her head pounding. All the warmth of last night was gone. “These scammers and dealers, beastmen like Marie, they devalue the meaning of beastman lives. They have no respect for what we’re trying to build here. They’ll tear down a city to replace it with filthy hovels.”

“Marie is the only reason I made it to Anima City,” Michiru said quietly. She bit her lip, trying not to cry. “We’re all just trying to survive.”

The anger slid off Shirou’s face. Part of the conversation from last night bubbled up from the murky depths of Michiru’s alcohol-numbed memories. _I need time proportionate to my age to come around to certain things._

“You know what,” she said, “let’s take some time to cool off, okay?”

Shirou hung his head. He crumpled the baggie and stuffed it in his pocket. “That’s probably for the best.”

Michiru grabbed her phone and left his apartment. She leaned heavily against the wall beside his door and wiped at her eyes. _Nazuna, I think I fucked things up again._

 _You always do,_ Nazuna sighed. 

Michiru summoned her bird wings and soared into the sky above Anima City. At least here she had one place where Shirou couldn’t follow her. Everywhere she went, he was there: at the docks, at the Starshine Lounge, even that afternoon when he showed up in her room and offered her food. It was like he didn’t trust her to make her own decisions, like he thought that without him babysitting, her judgement was compromised. 

_Maybe my judgement_ is _compromised._

Out at the edge of Anima City lay miles of apartments overlooking the beach, the beastman version of condos for retirees who want to live someplace warm. Michiru aimed for the nearly flat roof of one of the condos and misjudged her landing speed, tumbling and scraping her knee. 

“Shit,” she hissed, pulling off her jacket and pressing it over the raw scrape as blood oozed up. Nazuna’s dress was a complete mess: wrinkly, stained with sweat, alcohol, dirt, and now probably blood. If Nazuna ever came back to Anima City, how would Michiru explain this to her?

“Why am I worried about what you think?” Michiru laughed hollowly. “You’re never coming back. And if you do, you’re not going to come talk to me.”

 _It’s not my fault you made this so hard,_ Nazuna said, and Michiru could almost feel her former best friend sitting next to her, knees pulled up, their shoulders pressing together as the wind sprayed them with the salty mist of the ocean. _I tried to be the person you saw in your head. It was never enough._

“If you were here again and gave me a second chance, I’d do it differently.” Michiru pulled her knees in close and placed her chin on top of them. If someone looked from the beach they might be able to see up her dress, but at this point she didn’t care. 

_You need to take better care of yourself. Look at you. Sitting on a cold roof and letting the wind blow right through you. At least put on your jacket._ The shade of Nazuna wrapped her arm around Michiru, and maybe Michiru was imagining it, but she did feel a little warmer. She stared out at the beach, picking out large rocks and individual shells here and there. 

“I miss you so damn much.”

 _Of course you do._ Nazuna flipped her hair flirtatiously. _I’m wonderful._

Michiru pulled out her phone, and noticed that Ishizaki had emailed her. _Appointment for 8:30 PM this evening._ She dismissed the notification, pulled up her photo album, and scrolled all the way to the top, looking for a specific photo of her and Nazuna during the bus ride back from a school field trip years ago. Nazuna had insisted Michiru go to the face painting booth so they could be turned into “beastmen”, Nazuna playing at being a tiger and Michiru playing at being a mouse. Michiru reached the earliest photos on her phone and tried to keep scrolling, confused as to where the picture was, and then remembered. That picture was on a different phone, shot out of her hand by a beastman-hunter, destroyed and lost forever. The picture was gone. The memory lived in just that—memory only. The only person who also knew that the day had happened no longer spoke to Michiru. 

“I’m pushing Shirou away in the same way I pushed you away,” Michiru murmured.

_That’s not what happened, silly. You held me too close._

Without thinking, she dialed Nazuna’s number.

The phone rang once. 

Michiru considered hanging up.

It rang twice more. 

Five times now. Maybe no one would answer. Michiru hoped no one would answer. 

Then a click, a hiss of static. 

“Michiru?”

Michiru swallowed tightly. She took a shuddering breath but couldn’t form any words. It felt like such a long time since she last heard that voice. 

“Hello? Michiru? Did you mean to call me?”

“Nazuna!” Michiru cried out in relief. “I’m so glad to hear your voice!”

Silence on the other end. A crackle of static. Then, brightly: “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Michiru said tearily. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh. Well, everything’s good here.”

“Where are you, right now?”

“I’m in the car. I’m coming back from a fundraising luncheon to raise awareness for the migrant rights of aquatic mammals.”

Michiru closed her eyes and tried to imagine it: what kind of dress Nazuna was wearing, the way she had smiled and schmoozed, the food she had eaten, the chauffered car that drove her around. Michiru could have been there too, wearing a tie to match Nazuna’s dress, guiding her with a hand on her elbow. But she had fucked it all up. 

“Um, Michiru? Are you there?”

Michiru gave a wet sniff, a levee against the tears that threatened to overflow. “Why did we break up again?”

Nazuna let out a long, staticky sigh. “Michiru…”

“Did you always think I was too intense? The whole time, while we were together?”

“You’re just so passionate about things.”

“Do you think I scare people away?”

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable…”

“You’re right,” Michiru agreed quickly. “I’m sorry. I’ve been working on boundaries recently.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Um. How’s Shirou?”

Michiru dug her claws into the grouted gap between the tiles of the roof. “Let’s not talk about Shirou right now.”

“Is there anything—one second, I’m on the phone.” Her voice dimmed as if she was holding the phone away from her face. “ _No I don’t care, pick anywhere. Is it- no, I guess not. Give me a second._ I have to go.”

“Okay,” Michiru whispered.

“Talk to you soon.”

“Yeah. Wait—Nazuna?”

Nazuna was silent.

“I miss you a lot.”

“I’ll talk to you later, Michiru.”

Michiru hung up, placed the phone down carefully next to her on the roof, buried her face in her hands, and screamed. _Why can’t I figure this out? What am I doing wrong?_ But Nazuna was gone, even the shade of her evaporated. 

Michiru lay down flat on the roof. 

The rising sun began to warm the day. Michiru focused on the movement of people below, the opening and closing of doors, the discussion of grocery lists and the tapping of feet against cement sidewalks. Something that Shirou had said bothered her. _“I thought they were for your friend.”_

_“Same difference!”_

_“It’s not.”_

Michiru had never been getting the pills to help Arai. The whole time, even as she convinced herself otherwise, she was getting the pills for her own selfish purposes. If she convinced Arai to take anxiety medication, then Michiru could pat herself on the back for being the one to procure the pills. Even now she couldn’t find the line between doing things to help other people and helping other people to feel good about herself. 

“But what’s the difference?” she muttered. “It’s a good thing if Arai passes the GED test. Who cares if my reasons for helping her aren’t perfectly pure?”

 _“I don’t know,”_ whispered Arai through the depths of Michiru’s memory, her face contorted with anxiety. _“That doesn’t sound… safe.”_

Even Arai thought taking drugs wasn’t a good idea. Michiru felt sick. How had she not noticed? If she couldn’t trust her own judgement, how could she ever be sure she was doing right by her friends? Arai wasn’t a rich private school student whose parents could bail her out or send her to rehab. The Bears were vulnerable, crowded together nine to an apartment, carrying weapons to school so they didn’t get mugged, one misstep away from a catastrophe that could ruin their lives. And Shirou was right about one thing—humans were all too eager to see the lives of beastmen ruined. 

If there was no selfless way to help other people, then better not to help anyone at all. From now on, Michiru would only watch out for herself, and anyone who got in her way, human or beastman-

But that was exactly what Marie did, and Michiru couldn’t stand the thought of Shirou talking about her in the same tone he used for Marie. What was the difference? Michiru wracked her brain. _Am I doing this for the right reasons? Am I only trying to change so Shirou will look at me without disgust in his eyes?_

Nazuna placed her chin on Michiru’s shoulder, and whispered, her phantom breath tickling Michiru’s ear, _It’s not only about the reason you help people. You could have the most selfless reason in the world, but you do things in selfish ways. You never put yourself on the line when you’re accomplishing your goals. You never let yourself be vulnerable._

The only way for Michiru to know if she was doing things for selfish reasons was to see whether she was risking herself—risking safety, emotional security, failure. All things that Nazuna risked every day, the same things that Michiru hadn’t been willing to risk when they were together. She had wanted Nazuna to stay with her in the safety of the shadows, where no one else could see them. 

_Nazuna, I’m sorry._

* * *

The waiting area outside the mayor’s office in the town hall was empty, most of the civic employees gone home. A fluorescent light flickered in another room, exacerbating the morning’s headache that had never quite left. Michiru pressed her hands together between her knees; she wore her usual athleisure again, and felt more like herself. A few minutes after 8:30, the mayor opened the door to her office.

“Michiru? Come in.” 

There was a small conference table set up opposite the mayor’s desk, and this is where Mayor Rose offered Michiru a seat. Michiru sat down, and the mayor sat across from her. 

“Thank you for meeting with me,” Michiru said quietly. “I know you’re busy. It- it means a lot that you would take the time-”

“What did you want to speak with me about again?” asked the mayor, not unkindly.

“It’s about Rabbit Town.”

“Oh, Rabbit Town.” Mayor Rose smiled as if she already knew what Michiru was going to say. “Yes, I’ve been hearing about Rabbit Town from Shirou as well.”

“So you know,” Michiru exclaimed. “The humans are going to buy the land and destroy the buildings and make it so beastmen can’t afford to live there anymore. How could you let this happen? This is supposed to be the _beastman_ special zone.”

Mayor Rose massaged her temple, and Michiru noticed work-weary circles under her eyes. “This won’t be the first time we’ve been burned by the legislation that governs the beastman special zone, and it won’t be the last. Believe me when I say we’re looking into how these laws can be changed, as soon as possible. The truth is that many laws governing the beastman special zone were made to oppress us under the guise of granting us freedom. It’s not a coincidence that the beastman special zone was established on arid land, or that we’re forbidden from forming an independent government. We can’t hold a certain grade of weaponry, there are restrictions on what kind of industries we can develop, and our educational system is in shambles because our beastman freedoms act specifically restricts us from requiring that youth attend school. We operate the city government on a shoestring budget. We have no major institutions supporting the arts because somehow not a single one of them can get a grant proposal accepted. I’m well aware of the injustice of letting a human decide the fate of Rabbit Town, because the injustice is everywhere, but I truly appreciate hearing your concerns. If I had more civically involved beastmen like you, I might be able to make this city into the place that beastmen deserve.”

Michiru was silent for a long time, examining her paws. “What’s going to happen to Rabbit Town?”

“We’ll see. Ever since the kidnapping, public opinion has been against the municipality. They say it’s a hotbed of crime—and I can’t say I disagree.”

“But I saw her,” Michiru blurted. “The human woman who was kidnapped, I saw her at a nightclub last night.”

“How do you know who the woman is?”

“I saw her picture online,” Michiru said, avoiding the mayor’s gaze, remembering how Shirou had warned her that the co-op was probably bugged. She might be on the same side as the mayor, but that didn’t mean they needed to share all their secrets. “She wasn’t acting like a kidnapping victim.”

“Are you suggesting foul play? That’s very serious. You would need incontrovertible proof.”

“She didn’t look traumatized, or upset. She seemed completely at home. She was actually kind of rude to me.”

“Who are we to tell people how to process their trauma?” Mayor Rose said gently.

“I know she’s the partner of the man who bought Rabbit Town.”

“Yes, she is.”

“Does Shirou know?”

Mayor Rose frowned. “What do you mean?”

“He was the one who rescued her, right? When you asked him to rescue her, did you tell him who she was?”

“I’m sure he knew she was human the moment I gave him her sunglasses. If he cared who she was, he would have asked.”

“You’re probably right.” Michiru paused, biting her lip, weighing whether to ask the question that was on her mind. “Has Shirou ever gotten sick?”

“Sick how?” asked Mayor Rose, her eyes narrowed. 

“Um, I don’t know. I’m just curious. Could he get sick? Is such a thing possible?”

“Well… he’s immortal, so I don’t think so. But I do think his powers wax and wane.”

“What do you mean?”

“He has an alter ego as the silver wolf, a creature of faith. I believe when people lose their faith in the silver wolf, it has an effect on his supernatural powers. His speed, his strength, his miraculous sense of smell, you know. But everyone in Anima City saw the silver wolf was real on the night you broadcasted him throughout the city, so his powers should be stronger than ever. I suppose there’s a possibility it could have to do with him ingesting your blood. I doubt it since no one else is sick. But…” She laced her fingers together. “Are you _sure_ this is hypothetical?”

“Oh yeah, completely,” Michiru said, leaning back in her chair. 

“You’ll let me know if this hypothetical becomes a reality, right?”

“Of course, Mayor Rose.”

“Well then.” The mayor checked her watch. “I don’t want to chase you out, but I do have a call in a few minutes.”

Michiru jumped out of her chair. “I’ll get going. Thank you for your time.” She went to the door, and the mayor returned to her desk, but when Michiru’s hand touched the doorknob, an idea occurred to her. “One more thing?”

“Yes?”

“I have a friend who’s taking the GED with me tomorrow. She has terrible test anxiety. Is there a way for her to have extra time, or take the test in a different room?” Michiru twisted her hands together behind her back. 

“Michiru-”

“I know I’ve made some presumptuous requests in the past. I’ll understand if you can’t make an exception, and I won’t ask you to explain your decision-”

“Michiru, I-”

“But I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t at least ask.”

“The answer is yes.”

Michiru sucked in a breath. “Yes, to- to more time?”

“Yes to accommodations for your friend. She’ll receive fifty percent more time and she’ll take the test in a separate space.” The mayor’s expression was stern but kind. “What’s her name?”

“Arai Rascal.”

“Arai… Rascal.” The mayor wrote it down. “I’ll see to it that she’s taken care of. Is there anything else?”

“No, Mayor Rose.”

“Goodnight, then, Michiru.”

Michiru let herself out of the mayor’s office and closed the door behind her. Silence reigned in the corridors of town hall. _The mayor said yes to Arai._ Michiru felt herself grinning, an elation frothing up inside her like she hadn’t felt in weeks. Knowing no one was there to see her, she skipped down the hall, twirled around the corner and smacked into Shirou.

He caught her and she jumped away as if the touch of his skin seared her. “What are you doing here?” she gasped.

There was an expression like hunger, or longing, on his face. He pressed his hands into his pockets. “I was looking for you, actually. Are you ready to talk?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> watch for falling anvils <3
> 
> just to be super duper unambiguously clear, nazuna and michiru dated romantically. they were in lesbians.


	7. Sitting on Silver Scaffolds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Shirou makes a confession.

Michiru followed Shirou down to the lobby and grabbed his elbow before they could go any further. “Where are we going?”

“I thought we should find someplace quiet. Someplace neutral, where we’re both on equal ground.”

They stepped out of city hall into the cool night air. A cricket chirped somewhere on the pavilion in front of the building. “How about someplace up high? The top of city hall?” Michiru suggested, knowing Shirou’s fondness for high places.

“Would it be equal ground if I had to ride your back to get there?”

“I guess not.” Michiru looked around. “How about up there?” She pointed to a nearby construction site where the scaffolding of a new skyscraper pierced the night sky. “Can you climb to the top?”

“It’ll be cold at the top. You’re not wearing a lot of clothing.”

“Three stories up, then. High enough that we won’t be interrupted or seen.” 

Shirou nodded, and Michiru morphed into her bird wings. But when Shirou tried to morph into a wolf, he made a face. 

“Are you-”

“I’ve got it,” he said, and finished the morph. “Race you, little tanuki.” He took off.

“Not fair,” Michiru muttered, and flew after him. She beat him to the third level of the skyscraper and waited for him on a T-beam, dangling her legs down into the air. When he arrived, he sat down and left a few feet of space in between them.

Michiru looked out over the city, up at the sky and the winking satellites. She swung her legs back and forth. 

“So I wanna say-”

“I think I should-”

They stopped. “Sorry,” said Michiru.

“No,” Shirou said. “You go first.”

“Um…” Michiru wasn’t sure how to start. She had so many thoughts swirling around in her brain. “I didn’t realize how many terrible things humans had done to beastmen.”

“What do you mean?”

“I talked to Mayor Rose about Rabbit Town and she told me some of the ways humans have stacked the deck against the beastman special zone. They never wanted beastmen to succeed. They wanted us out of the way.”

Shirou flashed into human morph and then back into wolf morph so quickly that Michiru thought she might have imagined it. He crossed his ankles, the fabric of his pants rasping against the metal of the T-beam. Someone honked their horn on the street below. 

“I never understood why humans made you so angry. I’ve met good humans and bad humans. Even if they don’t understand beastmen, they’re not all cruel to them. But I never realized how much was under the surface, how much they hide their hatred in the form of law, it’s, it’s… there must be a word for what they’re doing.”

“Cruel,” he rumbled. 

“I was thinking of systemic, but yeah… it’s cruel. I’m sorry it’s still taken me so long to understand that. And I wanted to say you were right about the pills. I should never have considered them. You’re right about a lot of things.”

Shirou sighed heavily, his tail swishing. “I appreciate everything you’ve said.”

Michiru looked at him, frowning. _And?_

“Do you remember what we talked about last night, when you were, uh-”

“Drunk.”

“Yeah. Do you remember?”

Michiru thought back, searching through a disorganized collection of sensations and fragments of conversations. She remembered practically throwing herself into his lap, she remembered getting angry with him for changing the topic… Her face burned. “You said I was pretty.”

He chuckled, not looking at her, and Michiru wondered if he was going red under his fur as well. “Do you remember anything else?”

“…You said I made everything harder. You promised to explain in the morning.”

“Mm. I did.” 

“Well?” asked Michiru. “You’ve had a whole day, so your explanation had better be good.”

Shirou shook his head. “It’s difficult to talk about.”

“No one’s here but you and me,” Michiru teased, but he shook his head and she stopped smiling. He stood up on the beam and paced its length, one carefully placed foot in front of the other, all the way to the end of the beam and then back again. He morphed into human form.

“I’m used to being alone,” he said, sitting down. “I convinced myself that I liked being alone. Being around you upends everything I think I know about myself. I was sure I knew who I was, but when I’m around you I forget. Your humanness makes me doubt the beliefs I’ve held for hundreds of years. I lose the powers of the silver wolf. I try to spend less time around you, but when the silver wolf starts to come back it feels like I’ve traded away my heart.”

“What are you saying?” Michiru whispered even though she was pretty sure she knew. 

“When I’m around you…” He swallowed. “All I can think about is kissing you.”

Michiru grabbed him and kissed him.

He seemed shocked at first, seemed almost to pull back, but then he surged forward and grabbed her face and devoured her, fire and anger, and then sweetness. His hands explored her cheeks, her ears, the curve of her neck, and when they pulled apart he pressed his forehead to hers, eyes closed, still touching her face as if he couldn’t believe she was really there with him.

Then he jerked himself away. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Michiru raised a paw to her lips, still lost in the sensation of his mouth on hers. 

“I shouldn’t have done that-”

“I kissed _you._ ”

“I shouldn’t have let you-”

“You’re allowed to want things!” Michiru half-shouted in frustration. She scooted closer, and when he tried to move away she grabbed his arm. “You live like a monk, you give everything up for the silver wolf. But you know you and the silver wolf are the same person, right? Being with me doesn’t need to mean losing him.” She reached for his face and touched his cheek.

“A thousand of my brethren didn’t give me their lifeblood so that I could go and… dally around.” He took her cool hand and held it between his own two warm ones. 

“I have reservations about doing this too,” Michiru whispered. “I messed up my last relationship so bad… But it’s been a thousand years since Nirvasyl. Maybe you’ve earned a moment of selfishness.”

Shirou pulled away, letting her hand slip from between his. “I need some time to think.”

“Shirou, wait!”

With the speed of the silver wolf, he descended down the scaffolding and disappeared into the night. 

Michiru gaped. She couldn’t comprehend how things had been going so right, and then they had taken a hard turn into wrong. She walked back to the co-op on foot, slow and chilly, relishing the painful unremarkability of not allowing herself to fly or sprint or use any of the beastman agility that she loved. She focused on one foot in front of the other, like stepping stones across a stream, like Shirou across the beam, one foot in front of the other, the words she had repeated to herself when the world seemed to lay between her and Anima City and she thought she’d never get there. She wished she could talk to her mother about what was happening. Shirou was sick because of her. Maybe the right word was psychosomatic; he had convinced himself he couldn’t have the powers of the silver wolf and be with Michiru at the same time. 

“Sounds like a you problem,” Michiru muttered, but teasing Shirou when he wasn’t there made her feel sick.

When she got back to the co-op, Melissa and Gem had already gone up to their room, though they left the hall light on for her. They were slowly getting used to the idea of her staying out late. Michiru plopped down on her bed. Nazuna’s dress was there, clean and pressed; Melissa must have washed it. She lifted the fabric to her nose and inhaled deeply. It no longer smelled like Nazuna’s perfume, only the soft florals of laundry detergent. 

“Nazuna…” she began and then stopped. “Shirou, how do I make this right? Is it my place to make this right?”

She had an idea—an unlikely, one-in-a-hundred chance she could prove to Shirou that even if he didn’t have the silver wolf, he still had her, and she could be just as good. Quickly, before she could lose her certainty, she put on the dress, which she was coming to think of as her own. She put her red bomber jacket on over it, pulled on a pair of biking shorts for the comfort of knowing she wouldn’t flash anyone, and tucked her phone into her pocket. 

But where was her student ID? Her plan was dead from the start without her student ID. She scanned the room, remembering weeks ago when Shirou had picked it up, saying, _don’t want to lose this again._ She shifted a pile of papers off the table and found it buried at the bottom. She tucked the ID into her dress. 

Then she checked the time. If she showed up at the Starshine Lounge now she would be hanging out with the set-up staff. Maybe she could do some circles around Anima City for a while to work off some of the wound up energy inside her; she felt like a jack-in-the-box ready to pop. She went up to the roof, where the wind made liftoff easy, and then, as she waited for a strong gust, she paused.

_Am I doing this for the right reason?_

But then her strong wind came and she lifted off into the air. Most of Anima City was quiet at night. The traffic lights changed their colors without any cars to stop or start. The nocturnal and crepuscular beastmen usually adjusted to the rhythm of diurnal life in the city and went to sleep when everyone else did, meaning the stores were closed and the sidewalks nearly empty. Michiru would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit she was hoping she might spot Shirou somewhere down below, but the city was huge, and she was getting cold, so she dropped down low and perched on the roof of a tenement complex that looked like it had been designed by a prison architect. 

Below, two people whispered in harsh, hurried tones. 

_“You got the residents out?”_

_“They got the leaflets this morning about the gas leak, and I knocked on every door twice. Silver wolf help anyone left in there now. What apartment is the fire starting in?”_

_“Ya really don’t pay attention during briefings, dumbass. Apartment 111. Other side of the building. I set everything up while you were knocking on doors. Let’s beat it, we’ve got ten minutes before this place goes up.”_

Another fire. This had to be related to the fires that had been happening all over the city. Michiru followed the two beastmen along the roof of the building. Without thinking, she morphed into her wolf form and sniffed the air. Their scent carried up to her on a breeze.

They smelled like beastmen. But they also smelled like something else, a sourness that Michiru couldn’t immediately place. They smelled the way she used to smell after a heavy workout—like human sweat. 

The two beastmen morphed into a cat and groundhog and took off. Michiru sent a tip off to the police about the arson, and then followed them. They were going to lead back to the human who had hired them. With any luck, she would get it all on video. 

They got into a car and headed towards the nightlife district, where the late evening tourists had gone home and the night partiers were beginning to flood the streets. The car stopped in front of the Starshine Lounge. The two beastmen got out, back in their human morphs, showed their IDs to the bouncer, and headed inside. Michiru landed in an alley around the side of the club, went into her human morph as well, and got in line. She didn’t dare try to cut the line without Marie by her side. But the line wasn’t long—it was still early in the night, and the doorman signaled for her to come up in front of the group of guys at the front. She handed him her ID.

“You brought a student ID?” he deadpanned. 

“It says my age,” she said, wrapping her arms around her stomach and trying to smile. 

He examined it for a minute, asked her a few questions to see if she knew the information on the card, and then, as if he couldn’t believe someone would try to get in using a human student ID, he asked, “Meeting someone here?”

“Um.” Michiru wasn’t sure if this was the right person to tell, but it was all she had. “I’ve been told… ‘The bus to Anima City leaves at midnight’?”

“It sure does,” he said, and stamped her hand and let her in. Not entirely sure what had just happened, Michiru looked around inside for the cat and groundhog. The club was as crowded as the night before, but Michiru felt naked in her human skin, like everyone was staring at her. She moved along the wall and headed for the door in the back, where the same bouncer from the night before stood guard. She hoped he wouldn’t recognize her. 

“Hi,” she said cheerfully to the bouncer, pulling out her ID. “How are you tonight?”

“Not bad,” he said. He took her ID. 

“I’ve been told the bus to Anima City leaves at midnight,” Michiru said.

The bouncer’s eyes flicked between Michiru’s face and the picture on the ID. She kept the awkward smile plastered on her face. Finally, he said, “Welcome, Miss Kagemori,” and let her into the room.

Michiru hadn’t known what to expect but this seemed about right—a lounge with soft armchairs and booths, wood panel accents, quieter music, and better lighting. It was full of humans, or maybe some of them were beastmen pretending to be humans, like the two arsonists. No one looked up as she slipped in, and she joined a pair of disinterested young women in tight dresses, leaning against the wall and staring out into space. Maybe they were on something, or maybe they were being paid to fill out the room; maybe both. With the exception of a group of women in a booth who were drinking cocktails and laughing, the humans chatted in groups of twos and threes, heads together, like they were having private conversations and settling business deals. The room had the atmosphere of an office wearing the clothes of a nightclub. 

She spotted Tsunoda, sitting with the two arsonists and a man whose picture Michiru recognized from the article, the buyer of Rabbit Town. Michiru pulled out her phone but held it low by her waist. She didn’t see any other phones in the room and didn’t want to get kicked out. 

“I did my best,” said the cat. “Everyone was fairly warned. If there’s anyone still in there you can’t blame me for not trying.”

Michiru pressed record and slipped the phone sideways into her jacket pocket so the camera faced outwards.

“Careless,” Mr. Tsunoda scoffed.

“It’s not a terrible thing if there were a few beastmen left in there,” said Mrs. Tsunoda. “If it’s too clean it looks purposeful.”

The two humans and two beastmen looked around suspiciously, and Michiru did her best to assume the glazed, dead-eyed expression of the girls next to her. 

“You disposed of the gas cans properly this time?” Mrs. Tsunoda asked. “The police are sniffing around the dock fire. Seems like they found evidence it was staged.”

“That wasn’t us, boss,” said the cat. “We drowned those sloppy fuckers in the bay. No way to trace it back to you.”

“We’ll need to move up the timeline on Rabbit Town up,” muttered Mr. Tsunoda. “I’ve gotten word that that wolf guy has been skulking around. I don’t want him interfering in this before that shithole is ashes and we’ve got the insurance payout…”

“The same wolf who ended my kidnapping prematurely?” asked Mrs. Tsunoda.

“Shirou Ogami,” the groundhog spat. “The mayor’s brass knuckles.”

As if triggered by the sound of Shirou’s name, Michiru’s phone buzzed, cutting the recording short. She pressed the button to decline the call. _One missed call from an Unknown Number._

Michiru glanced around. It was time to go before she got caught. What she had recorded was more than enough to prove the Tsunodas’ duplicity. She slipped back out the door, stumbling at the blast of sound and sweaty heat from the dance floor. The room tilted and thumped. Michiru pressed along the wall, pushing through what had become a wall of bodies, and burst into the open night air. She stopped to appreciate the night chill against her sweaty skin and breathe in the fresh air. She morphed back into tanuki form, slipping into the anonymity of beastmanhood, which helped to calm her hammering heart. Not wanting to attract attention when she was so close to getting home undetected, she put her head down and hurried down the street on foot, joining a group of women. Only when she was a few blocks away from the throbbing nightlife district did she morph into her wings and head towards the co-op.

But while she was in the air she felt a strange lightness in her pocket. She landed on the roof of a nearby building and reached for her phone. 

Her phone was gone.

Michiru looked for her phone all night. She retraced her steps, she pestered the bouncer at the door of the Starshine Lounge, she sat on the roof across the street and watched the partiers leave, trying to spot someone who looked like a culprit. None of the humans from the back room left through the front entrance; they were getting out through a hidden side entrance that she couldn’t find even after circling the building. Michiru went back and pestered the bouncer again, and as the night wound down he let her back in so she could go scour the dance floor and pester the other bouncer and the bartenders and the staff, all of whom said she’d have better luck coming back tomorrow around opening time, once they’d had time to clean up and see what had been left behind. The last of the revelers trickled out and the sky began to lighten. Michiru’s eyes ached. In four hours she was due to report to city hall to take the GED. She owed it to Arai, Sloth, and Panda to show up and take the test with them—she was the reason they had decided to do it in the first place. She hadn’t told Arai about her accomodations yet; Arai had probably spent the night tossing and turning, not having heard from Michiru in almost two days, unsure of the plan. 

Reluctantly, Michiru flew home. Her arms ached. 

Shirou was waiting for her in her room. “I tried to call you,” he said hoarsely. “Were you out again?”

Michiru collapsed onto her bed, too tired to care about the kiss, or the conversation they had had on the scaffolding, which felt like it had been days ago instead of hours. “You were right about the fires being connected,” she mumbled, her eyes already closing. 

“What? What do you mean?” Shirou kneeled down beside her bed, a hand on her shoulder. 

“They’re staging them so it’s less suspicious when they burn down Rabbit Town.” Haltingly, Michiru told him what she had learned about the staged kidnapping, the arsons, her sneaking into the back room of the Starshine Lounge, and the video she had taken. “But I lost my phone,” she whispered. “Disappeared out of my pocket… I spent all night looking for it. The evidence is gone.”

“It’s not gone,” Shirou said firmly. “I’ll get your phone back.”

“How? You won’t find it without your silver wolf sense of smell.”

“I’ll figure it out.” He stroked her head and pulled the covers over her. “You’re taking the GED in the morning, right?”

“I’m gonna fail. I haven’t even told Arai about her extra time…”

“You won't fail. You’re Michiru Kagemori. Get some sleep. Your alarm is set for 8.”

Michiru wanted to stay awake, she wanted to insist on coming with him, but the slow, patient petting of her head put her to sleep, and it felt like she had barely closed her eyes when she awoke to sunlight streaming through her windows. She sat at the table as Melissa made her breakfast and bubbled about being well-fed for the test, she milled nervously with Sloth, Panda, Arai, and the other test-takers in city hall, her eye met Mayor Rose’s far across the corridor, and then an attendant found Arai and took the raccoon to a separate room, and the rest of the test-takers were ushered into a room with rows of desks, blue booklets, and a clock on the front wall; they took their seats, wrote their names on their booklets, and the proctor said, “You have seventy minutes to complete the first section. Begin.”


	8. Sometimes It's Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Shirou finally smiles.

“Please put your pencils down and close your test booklets,” the proctor said. “Young man in the front, that includes you.”

Michiru closed her GED booklet with a sense of anticlimax. She had taken the GED, and now all that was left was to wait for the test results to come back. She twisted in her seat to see how Sloth and Panda were doing. They smiled, and Sloth waved. 

The proctor collected the books and the test-takers filed out into the hall, nervously forming groups to discuss the questions. 

Panda stretched, crackling his back. “How do you think you did?”

“That was so easy, I could go do it again,” joked Sloth. 

Michiru could barely remember taking the test. She had been distracted the whole time, the only thought in her head _Shirou, Shirou,_ like a skipping record. 

Sloth tugged on Michiru’s arm. “When does Arai finish?”

“She has another hour, I think.” Michiru rubbed her eyes. “You go ahead, the rest of the team is at Pizzanimal and you shouldn’t keep them waiting. I’ll stay for Arai.”

“Are you sure?” asked Panda, examining her. “You look pretty tired.”

“I am pretty tired. But I’d rather wait here than anywhere else.”

Doubtful, but not in the habit of contradicting their star teammate, Panda and Sloth left city hall and headed to Pizzanimal. Michiru sank into one of the soft plastic chairs in the lobby, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes. She wanted to curl up but the chair wasn’t the right shape for it. She focused on the ambient sounds of the lobby, the shoes against linoleum and the scratch of pen on paper, and tried not to imagine where Shirou was. The Tsunodas knew he was after them, and she couldn’t remember if she had warned him of it before she fell asleep. 

“Michiru?”

She sat up so suddenly she almost gave herself whiplash, looking around wildly for Shirou. Melissa and Gem waved.

“We thought we’d take you out to lunch to celebrate finishing the test,” Melissa said. “Looks like the test ended earlier than we expected. Or—you _did_ take the test, right?”

“I took it,” Michiru said tiredly. “I’m waiting for Arai. She has accommodations for extra time. Sloth and Panda went ahead to Pizzanimal.”

Gem and Melissa took a seat on either side of her. “We’ll wait with you,” Gem said. 

“We’re proud of you, you know,” said Melissa. 

“Couldn’t have been more proud if you were our own daughter,” Gem agreed. 

Tears welled up in Michiru’s eyes and she wiped them away. The gaping absence of her phone only reminded her how much she wanted to talk to her mom right now. “Thanks,” she said, bumping her shoulder into Melissa and then Gem. “That means a lot.”

Then she saw a strange sight entering city hall: the entire Bears baseball team minus Arai, carrying a single box of pizza over their head like a trophy. 

“Michiru!” Jackie announced, drawing the eyes of everyone in the lobby. “We brought you pizza!” Grinning, and a little embarrassed but mostly happy, Michiru beckoned them over and they filled up the seats and floor around her. Jackie opened the pizza box like she was revealing long lost treasure. Inside was the smallest pizza Michiru had ever seen, cut into sixteen tiny slices. “We talked it over while we were walking,” Jackie explained. “We all get one slice, then you, Sloth, Panda, and Arai get one more slice because you took the test, and then we split the last two slices ten ways.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Michiru agreed, because she had long since learned that some ideas were too well-reasoned and too absurd to argue with. She looked over the heads of the Bears. “OH! ARAI!”

Arai wobbled over to cheers from the team.

“How did it go?” Michiru asked.

Arai plopped onto the ground, her smile shaky. “I answered all the questions and even had time to check some of them.”

Michiru wrapped the anxiety-ridden raccoon in a hug. “The hardest part is over. Now we wait for our results. I’m sure you passed.”

“We have pizza,” Jackie added, leaning into their conversation. “You get two and one-tenth of a slice.” But Arai said she didn’t feel well enough to eat yet, and Michiru didn’t either. Where was Shirou? Had he found her phone? Maybe he was waiting for her back at the co-op—maybe the Tsunodas and their henchmen had found him before he found the phone. 

But then she saw him, beat up and dirty but standing tall, striding across the hall, and without thinking she left the Bears and went to him.

“Did you find it?” she breathed, not daring to hope.

By way of answer, he held up an object between them. Michiru struggled to process the object she was looking at—cracked, dirty, and smudged. It was her phone. 

“What- how did you-”

He handed it back to her. “I had almost forgotten you smell like lavender.”

“Your smell is back?”

“Let’s go outside.”

They went and sat on a bench on the pavilion. Michiru hesitated, putting a few feet of space between them. “We should get this to the mayor as soon as possible.”

“There’s something I want you to know first. Can you unlock your phone?” Trying to hide the shaking in her hands, Michiru unlocked her phone and handed it to him. He opened her voicemails. “Last night I called you from a phone booth and left you a message. It explains more clearly… about everything. About me, about the silver wolf. You know I don’t like to talk about myself. Everything is in the message.”

Michiru looked at the recording. It was nearly twenty minutes long. “Do I have to listen to this now?”

“I’d rather you didn’t. Not in front of me.”

Michiru selected the voicemail and emailed it to herself, still not looking at him. “I’ll listen to it later then.”

Shirou nodded, standing. 

“Wait,” she said. “You’ve got your smell back, does that mean you have everything back? You’ve chosen the silver wolf?”

She almost didn’t want him to answer. She wanted to live in that liminal dream state where the possibility of being with Shirou was still alive. 

He took a deep breath. “It means I think you’re right. Maybe… there’s no contradiction between me and us. But being together might be hard.”

“It might be,” Michiru agreed. “You’re very controlling sometimes.”

“And you’re overly headstrong.”

“I’m an independent person.”

“Me too.”

“But it’s tiring to be alone.”

“It is.”

“We’re two sides of the same coin, huh?”

“Michiru.” Shirou placed his hand between them, palm up. An invitation. “I enjoy your company.”

Her first instinct was to tease him. She squashed this instinct. Admitting something personal made him feel vulnerable, and he hated being vulnerable. She put her hand in his, lacing their fingers together. “I want this.”

“‘This’?”

“Us.” She stood up and cupped his cheek, and he bent down and kissed her quickly on the lips. She stood on her toes and kissed him back. “Let’s get this phone to the mayor. You’ll have to tell me how you got it back on the way.”

* * *

“Alright, welcome to today’s game, I hope you’ve all put in your bets because today we have the league’s underdogs, or should I say under _bears,_ the Bears! Up against them are the Flamingos, here come the lovely ladies now…”

Normally Michiru would put her phone in her bag when the game started and not check it until the game was over. But the GED results were scheduled to come out today. Sloth, Panda, and Arai were also antsy, hovering around her, waiting for her to receive the email with the good or bad news for each of them. 

Her phone buzzed. Sloth, Panda, and Arai all shot to her side. Shirou, who sat in the stands right next to the dugout, also looked over. “It’s just a text,” Michiru announced, and her teammates slumped away. 

The announcer listed off the various names of the Flamingo players. He had a bit of a thing for the Flamingos. Michiru went and sat next to Shirou in the stands.

“How’re you feeling?” he asked, putting an arm around her shoulders. 

She snuggled into him, glad to take any bit of affection she could get. He didn’t like to touch her too much in public; he called it indecorous. “I’m pretty happy about how things turned out. I really wish I knew whether I passed the GED though. It’ll drive me crazy, running back to check my phone between every inning. I’m gonna play so badly.”

Compulsively she checked her phone again, and read who the text was from. _Nazuna._ Unable to help herself, she opened the message.

_Hey, I’m making a stop in Anima City soon, do you want to get lunch while I’m there?_

“Is that the results?” Shirou asked.

“No.” Michiru smiled and tucked her phone away, wrapping her arm around him and focusing on his warmth. “It’s not important. I’ll answer it later.”

“This is getting touchy,” Shirou said, starting to pull away.

“Shirou, please,” Michiru said, latching herself onto him. “We’ve got at least five minutes before the announcer is done listing fun facts about the Flamingos. Let me enjoy this.” But she stiffened and pulled away when she saw an unusual sight: the mayor climbing through the stands towards her and Shirou.

“What’s wrong?” Shirou asked.

“For once, I’m not here for you,” said Mayor Rose. “I’m here to talk to Michiru. Do you have a moment?” Exchanging a quizzical glance with Shirou, Michiru led the mayor down towards the dugout. All of the Bears looked over. Sloth, Panda, and Arai came to stand next to Michiru as if to support her. “I’m glad you’re here,” the mayor said to the three Bears teammates.

“You’re talking to us?” squeaked Arai. 

“Yes, I thought it might be fun to deliver your GED results in person while I’m here. Sloth, Panda, Arai, congratulations. You all passed.”

The three teammates shouted in delight and ran off to tell the rest of the Bears. Over the mayor’s shoulder, Michiru caught Shirou’s eye. He was listening in on their conversation from his seat. “What about me?” Michiru asked.

The mayor smiled, a bit wistful. “Congratulations to you as well, Michiru Kagemori. You also passed your GED.”

“I did?” Michiru beamed at Shirou, and then before she could doubt herself, she hugged the mayor. 

“Oh my,” said the mayor, patting Michiru on the back. “There’s also something else I wanted to talk to you about.”

Michiru stepped a respectful distance back, trying to contain her urge to jump up and down in excitement. “What is it?”

“Now that the Tsunodas and their accomplices have been arrested, I’ve decided to form a taskforce on homelessness from a group of civically involved citizens of Anima City. I need beastmen like you, Michiru. Will you join?”

Michiru already knew what her answer was, but she looked to Shirou anyway. He gave her a small smile and a nod. She turned to the mayor, grinning. “I’m in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for following this story to its end. If you commented, please know that I read and treasure every single comment; I’d write each of you a love letter if I could. I’m not used to sharing my writing and I had no expectation that anyone would be interested in this story. I’m still stunned by all the strong responses. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed writing it.  
> xx Hieronymus


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